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

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