At AutoZone, we are on a journey to transform our Search Platform into a highly intelligent, scalable, and customer-centric discovery engine. As a Technical Program Manager (TPM) on the Search Platform team, you will lead the end-to-end execution of complex, cross-functional initiatives that power search, relevance, ranking, and AI-driven discovery experiences across our digital ecosystem.
You will partner closely with Engineering, Product, Data Science, and Infrastructure teams to deliver high-impact search capabilities that improve customer engagement, conversion, and overall experience. This role requires a strong blend of technical depth, program leadership, and business alignment to translate strategic goals into scalable, production-ready solutions.
A successful candidate will bring experience managing large-scale distributed systems, a solid understanding of modern search and AI-driven architectures, and a proven ability to drive execution, influence stakeholders, and deliver measurable outcomes in a fast-paced environment.
Program Leadership
- Lead end-to-end execution of search platform initiatives from concept through production
- Drive alignment across Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Infrastructure teams
- Manage multiple concurrent programs with clear prioritization, dependencies, and trade-offs
- Establish and track program KPIs (e.g., latency, relevance, conversion, search success rate)
Search & AI Strategy Execution
- Partner with leadership to execute the search roadmap across keyword, semantic, and AI-powered search
- Drive adoption of modern capabilities such as vector search, embeddings, hybrid retrieval, and LLM-based ranking
- Translate business problems into scalable search and discovery solutions aligned with customer and revenue goals
Technical Delivery
- Work closely with engineering teams on indexing pipelines, data ingestion, query processing, and ranking systems
- Ensure solutions meet enterprise standards for scalability, resiliency, performance, and cost efficiency
- Align architecture and design decisions with enterprise and platform standards
Data-Driven Optimization
- Define, monitor, and improve key search metrics (e.g., search success rate, zero-result rate, CTR, latency)
- Lead experimentation frameworks including A/B testing and relevance tuning
- Use data insights to prioritize enhancements and quantify business impact
Stakeholder Management
- Build strong, trusted relationships with business, product, and technology leaders
- Communicate program status, risks, and outcomes clearly to senior leadership
- Act as the bridge between technical teams and business stakeholders, enabling informed decision-making
Operational Excellence
- Establish scalable program governance, playbooks, and delivery frameworks
- Identify risks, dependencies, and bottlenecks early; drive mitigation and resolution
- Champion Agile, SDLC, and DevOps best practices across teams
- Coordinate across internal teams and external vendors/partners as needed
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field required; Master’s degree preferred
- Minimum of 10 – 15 years of total experience in technology, with at least 5 – 7 years in Technical Program Management or leading large-scale, cross-functional initiatives
- Proven experience delivering programs for distributed systems, preferably in Search, Recommendations, or Data Platforms
- Strong understanding of search systems, including indexing, query processing, and ranking; experience with platforms such as Elasticsearch, Apache Solr, or similar technologies is highly desirable
- Experience with microservices, APIs, and cloud-native architectures (AWS, Azure, or GCP); familiarity with MACH principles is a plus
- Experience working with Data Science / ML teams, including experimentation (A/B testing), model lifecycle, and data-driven optimization
- Strong experience in Agile methodologies (Scrum / Kanban / SAFe) and program governance frameworks
- Excellent communication, stakeholder management, problem-solving, and analytical skills; ability to influence without direct authority
- Experience managing program financials, resource planning, and vendor/partner relationships is a plus
- Strong ownership mindset, high sense of urgency, and ability to operate effectively in ambiguous, fast-paced environments
- Exposure to AI/ML-driven search, semantic search, vector databases, and LLM-based retrieval systems is highly desirable
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