Role in brief
Notion is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead their Search & Context Platform team. This role involves overseeing the development and reliability of search infrastructure and data indexing for AI tools, impacting millions of users. It suits a technically-minded leader with experience in large-scale search or data systems and a background in platform management.
About the role
This Engineering Manager role at Notion focuses on leading a platform team responsible for critical search infrastructure. This includes managing lexical and semantic search, indexing, retrieval, and context primitives. The manager will define the team's roadmap, balancing long-term foundational investments with rapid iteration to support new features and entities.
A key aspect of this position is ensuring the platform's high reliability. This involves establishing Service Level Objectives (SLOs), implementing deep observability, and maintaining strong on-call health. The manager will also drive prevention-first incident response and post-mortem practices to minimize disruptions for a user base of millions.
The successful candidate will collaborate closely with product and AI teams, who are primary consumers of the platform. This involves anticipating their needs and investing in capacity and capabilities to accelerate product development. The role also includes building and developing the engineering team through hiring, coaching, and fostering an environment where individual contributors can thrive.
The estimated base salary range for this full-time remote position is $280,000 to $330,000 per year.
Skills that matter here
- search: This role requires depth in search infrastructure, covering both lexical and semantic approaches, to power Notion's AI workspace.
- retrieval: The manager will oversee the development and optimization of data retrieval mechanisms for the platform.
- data indexing: A core responsibility is managing large-scale data indexing systems to ensure efficient access to information.
- big data pipelines: Experience with big data pipelines is essential for handling and processing the vast amounts of information within Notion's platform.
- platform management: The role involves product managing a platform or infrastructure scope, balancing foundational work with rapid feature iteration.
Who this role suits
- A leader with at least 4 years of experience managing engineering teams that ship high-quality systems.
- Someone with a technically leaning management style, capable of engaging in architectural debates and trade-offs.
- An individual with strong systems judgment regarding scalability, performance, and enterprise readiness.
- A person who can make difficult trade-offs to unblock product velocity while safeguarding long-term system health.
From the employer
- Lead a high-performing platform team responsible for search infrastructure (lexical & semantic), indexing, retrieval, and context/memory primitives.
- Set a clear roadmap balancing foundational platform investments with fast iteration on indexing new entities/features.
- Operate the platform with a high reliability bar: SLOs, deep observability, on-call health, early-warning signals, and prevention-first incident/post-mortem practices.
- Partner closely with the Search & Context product team, the AI team, and other consumers of the platform.
- Anticipate customer needs and invest in capacity and capabilities to accelerate product velocity.
- Build and lead the team through hiring, coaching, feedback, and creating an environment for strong technical ICs.
- Contribute to Notion's broader engineering practices around platform design, reliability, on-call, and AI-era infrastructure.
- 4+ years of experience leading engineering teams with a track record of shipping high-quality systems.
- A technically leaning management style with the ability to debate architecture and tradeoffs.
- Depth in search, retrieval, or large-scale data/indexing systems.
- Experience product managing a platform or infrastructure scope.
- Strong systems judgment around scalability, performance, security, and enterprise readiness.
- A bias for making hard tradeoffs to unblock product velocity while protecting long-term health.
- Experience working closely with product and AI teams as customers of a platform.
- High tolerance for ambiguity and rapid change.
- Highly competitive cash compensation, equity, and benefits.
- Estimated base salary range for this role is $280,000 - $330,000 per year.
Questions about this role
What is the remote work policy for this role?
This is a fully remote position.
What level of experience is required for this position?
Candidates should have at least 4 years of experience leading engineering teams.
What is the salary range for this role?
The estimated base salary range for this position is $280,000 to $330,000 per year.