Senior Engineering Lead

Position: Experience - Senior Engineering Lead

About the company

Meilisearch is redefining the future of search for developers and end-users alike.

Our open-source, Rust-powered search engine delivers lightning-fast, typo-tolerant, and hyper-relevant results—out-of-the-box, with intuitive APIs and minimal configuration.

From powering the discoverability of 300,000+ AI models at Hugging Face to transforming retail experiences for Louis Vuitton, Meilisearch is trusted by thousands of organizations and developers worldwide.

Since 2018, we’ve grown into a remote-first team across 8+ countries, backed by leading investors including Felicis Ventures, CRV and Seedcamp. Our vibrant community drives innovation, with every design spec, SDK, and feature built transparently in collaboration with contributors.

Join us and help shape the next generation of search—where speed, simplicity, and developer experience come first.

About the Role

Join Meilisearch's Experience team as a Senior Engineering Lead (Experience Team), bridging technical excellence with strategic vision. In this role you'll split your time between development and technical leadership. You’ll steer our team to technical and operational excellence while ensuring customers receive maximum value through rapid, iterative delivery.

Work in partnership with our Head of Experience & Engineering Operations to guide technical decisions, mentor developers, and ensure meaningful customer impact.

What You'll Do Strategic Technical Leadership

Partner closely with the Head of Experience & Engineering Operations to drive technical decisions and represent team vision to stakeholders.

Ensure development aligns with product strategy while orienting the team toward innovation.

Customer-Centric Development

Champion iterative delivery approaches that get value to customers quickly.

Ensure we deeply understand our customers and respond to their needs through rapid feedback loops & ownership of the customer journey.

Team Development & Collaboration

Mentor and guide a team of developers, creating space for their technical growth and best ideas.

Foster collaborative problem-solving while maintaining technical standards and quality guidelines.

Hands-On Technical Contribution

Spend approximately 50% of your time coding alongside the team.

Guide architectural decisions and lead by example in code quality and development practices.

Incident Management & Operations

Participate in on-call rotation and lead incident response when technical issues arise.

Drive post-incident reviews and implement improvements to prevent future occurrences.

Cross-Functional Partnership

Work closely with product stakeholders to translate complex technical concepts into actionable plans.

Drive process improvements in how we work with other departments and communicate progress.

Our ideal profile What Makes You Successful

You balance technical depth with strategic thinking.

You thrive in collaborative environments and bring out the best in others.

You're passionate about customer impact and iterative delivery.

You're excited about AI's potential and can help orient a team toward that future while staying critically minded on its application.

You can make tough technical decisions while building consensus.

You're comfortable with ambiguity and can adapt quickly.

What We're Looking For Essential

8-12+ years of software development experience.

Deep Ruby on Rails expertise (non-negotiable).

Experience with React, AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, Git Hub Actions.

Background in systems engineering & interest in learning Rust fundamentals, understanding our search engine architecture.

Cross-functional collaboration with product stakeholders.

3+ years technical leadership/mentoring experience.

Strong communication skills.

Nice to Have

Additional backend languages (Rust, Python, Node.js, etc.).

Search/database technology background.

AI/ML experience.

Why you'll enjoy working with us

Hybrid working in Paris 🇫🇷, remote in EU or US East-coast timezone.

Permanent full-time contract.

Stock options.

Protected Fridays & flexible working hours.

If you’re working from home, we will provide either a stipend for you to equip yourself, or an access to Fleex (Europe).

Access to a mental health platform moka.care + 6 sessions with a coach/trained therapist.

We support physical health and provide either a membership or a stipend for your sports activities each month.

3 months paid parental leave.

6 weeks paid time off.

Management training to freshly hired and newly appointed managers.

We all get together at least twice a year for a company offsite.

Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend not to apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We strive to develop an inclusive work environment that reflects the diversity of our open-source community. We strongly encourage you to apply!

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