At Algolia, we’re proud to be a pioneer and market leader in AI Search, empowering 17,000+ businesses to deliver blazing-fast, predictive search and browse experiences at internet scale. Every week, we power over 30 billion search requests — four times more than Microsoft Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, and DuckDuckGo combined.

In 2021, we raised $150 million in Series D funding, quadrupling our valuation to $2.25 billion. This strong foundation enables us to keep investing in our market-leading platform and serving incredible customers like Under Armour, PetSmart, Stripe, Gymshark, and Walgreens.

To support this next phase of growth, this is a new individual contributor executive role responsible for transforming how Product, Engineering, AI Research, and Platform teams operate. Reporting directly to the CEO, the VP, AI-Native Ops & Automation, R&D will define and scale the operating system for how Algolia builds, ships, instruments, and continuously improves products and platforms across the company.

This role goes beyond traditional Product Operations or Engineering Operations leadership. The mandate is to embed AI deeply into software development workflows, engineering coordination, prioritization systems, operational instrumentation, and organizational decision-making, enabling a high-velocity, continuously optimized R&D organization built for enterprise scale and rapid innovation.

YOUR ROLE WILL CONSIST OF:

Lead R&D Operating Model Transformation

Analyze and redesign the full product development lifecycle across planning, prioritization, development, deployment, and release management
Identify bottlenecks, coordination overhead, tooling gaps, and workflow inefficiencies across Product, Engineering, AI Research, and Platform teams
Define scalable, AI-native operating models that improve development velocity, quality, reliability, and execution consistency

Build AI-Augmented Engineering & Product Intelligence

Apply AI and advanced analytics across engineering telemetry, CI/CD systems, product usage data, incidents, retrospectives, and customer feedback
Develop systems that continuously surface delivery risks, quality issues, prioritization opportunities, and operational insights
Partner with infrastructure, platform, and developer tooling teams to embed AI and automation deeply into engineering workflows

Drive Transformation Execution, Adoption & Governance

Build and execute a multi-quarter roadmap for R&D operational transformation
Drive adoption of AI-assisted workflows, automated reporting, and intelligent execution systems across Product and Engineering leadership
Establish governance models for AI usage, workflow instrumentation, data integrity, and system reliability

Establish Performance Measurement & Operational Excellence

Define KPI frameworks across cycle time, deployment frequency, reliability, productivity, and engineering efficiency
Measure the impact of automation and AI adoption across development workflows
Institutionalize repeatable methodologies for AI-enabled product development and engineering operations

YOU MIGHT BE A FIT IF YOU HAVE:

Strong systems thinking and a passion for optimizing complex engineering and product organizations
Exceptional communication and influence skills across executive, technical, and operational stakeholders
15+ years of experience in Product Operations, Engineering Operations, Technical Program Leadership, or enterprise transformation roles
Deep understanding of modern software development lifecycles, developer tooling ecosystems, platform engineering, and AI/ML-enabled workflows
Demonstrated success leading large-scale engineering or product transformation initiatives with measurable operational outcomes

NICE TO HAVE

Experience in high-scale SaaS, AI infrastructure, platform engineering, or enterprise technology environments
Familiarity with AI-assisted software development tooling, autonomous workflows, and engineering intelligence systems
Experience scaling globally distributed engineering organizations
Exposure to governance, reliability, and operational excellence frameworks in complex technical organizations

WE’RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO CAN LIVE OUR VALUES:

GRIT - Problem-solving and perseverance capability in an ever-changing and growing environment
TRUST - Willingness to trust our co-workers and to take ownership
CANDOR - Ability to receive and give constructive feedback
CARE - Genuine care about other team members, our clients, and the decisions we make as a company
HUMILITY - Aptitude for learning from others and putting ego aside

#LI-Remote

FLEXIBLE WORKPLACE STRATEGY:

Algolia’s flexible workplace model is designed to empower all Algolians to fulfill our mission to power search and discovery with ease. We place an emphasis on an individual’s impact, contribution, and output, over their physical location. Algolia is a high-trust environment and many of our team members have the autonomy to choose where they want to work and when.

We have a global presence with offices in Paris, NYC, London, Sydney and Bucharest, however we also offer many of our team members the option to work remotely either as fully remote or hybrid-remote employees. Positions listed as "Remote" are only available for remote work within the specified country. Positions listed within a specific city are only available in that location - depending on the role it may be available with either a hybrid-remote or in-office schedule.

WE’RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO CAN LIVE OUR VALUES:

GRIT - Problem-solving and perseverance capability in an ever-changing and growing environment.
TRUST - Willingness to trust our co-workers and to take ownership.
CANDOR - Ability to receive and give constructive feedback.
CARE - Genuine care about other team members, our clients and the decisions we make in the company.
HUMILITY - Aptitude for learning from others, putting ego aside.

We’re looking for talented, passionate people to help build the world’s best search and discovery technology. We value autonomy, diversity, and collaboration. We’re committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone is respected and supported—regardless of race, age, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, color, veteran status, disability, or socioeconomic background.

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR CANDIDATES - Recruitment Fraud Notice

We’ve recently seen an increase in recruitment scams targeting job seekers. To help protect yourself, please keep the following in mind:

Our open positions may appear on third-party job boards, but the best way to apply safely is directly through our careers page.
All genuine communication from Algolia will come from an @algolia.com email address.

VP, AI-Native Ops & Automation, R&D