Software Engineer IV - Search Platform
Grainger ·
- Employment
- Full time
- Category
- Software engineering
- Experience
- 5+ years
- Company size
- 1000+
- Salary
- USD 134,100 – 223,500 / year
Grainger ·
Grainger Businesses · Chicago, Cook County
Grainger Businesses · Chicago, Cook County
Grainger Businesses · Chicago, Cook County
Grainger Businesses · Chicago, Cook County
Lead-level software engineer (Software Engineer IV) on Grainger's Search Platform, owning search relevance for the product catalog — building lexical (BM25/TF-IDF) and semantic/vector retrieval, hybrid ranking and learning-to-rank, and measuring quality via offline metrics and online experiments. Core tech: Java, Python, distributed search systems, embeddings/ANN vector search.
Work Location Type: Hybrid
Req Number 334762
About Grainger
W.W. Grainger, Inc. is a leading broad line distributor with operations primarily in North America and Japan. At Grainger, We Keep the World Working® by serving more than 4.6 million customers worldwide with maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products and value-added solutions delivered through innovative technology and deep customer expertise. Known for its commitment to service and purpose-driven culture, the Company reported 2025 revenue of $17.9 billion. For more information, visit
Compensation
The anticipated base pay compensation range for this position is $134,100.00 – $223,500.00. This role is eligible for an incentive target of up to 15% or $, based on the achievement of individual and company performance objectives in accordance with the current terms of the incentive program which are subject to change.
Rewards and Benefits
With benefits starting on day one, our programs provide choice and flexibility to meet team members' individual needs, including:
For additional information and details regarding Grainger’s benefits, please click on the link below:
Grainger Benefits
The pay range provided above is not a guarantee of compensation. The range reflects the potential base pay for this role at the time of this posting based on the job grade for this position. Individual base pay compensation will depend, in part, on factors such as geographic work location and relevant experience and skills.
The anticipated compensation range described above is subject to change and the compensation ultimately paid may be higher or lower than the range described above.
Grainger reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion at any time, consistent with applicable law.
Position Details
As a Lead Software Engineer (Software Engineer IV) you will develop applications that align with a strategic vision. In addition to coaching engineers, you will partner with key stakeholders including Product Managers and Architecture. You will embrace curiosity to ensure a deep understanding of the business requirements that drive the analysis and physical design of technical solutions.
In this role you will focus on search relevance for Grainger's product catalog, the systems that determine which products a customer sees when they search. You will work across both lexical and semantic retrieval, partnering with Data Science on embedding models and with Product and Analytics on how relevance is measured. Search quality at this scale is measured rather than assumed, so experiment design and analysis are a core part of the role alongside engineering.
You Will
Lead engineer on a team responsible for the application and delivery of high-quality, maintainable software for highly complex applications
Influence team adoption of sensible defaults to enable continuous delivery activities
Contribute to continuous learning on your team culture by leading knowledge sharing sessions with latest technological features and engineering practices
Maintain software in production with demonstrated ability to triage and resolve issues
Mentor developers, conduct code reviews, and participate in pair programming
Partners directly with IT Management team to ensure successful design and delivery of technology based solutions
Design, build, and improve search systems using lexical (e.g., BM25/TF-IDF) and semantic/vector-based retrieval approaches.
Develop and optimize ranking strategies, including hybrid retrieval, reranking, and learning-to-rank techniques to improve relevance.
Evaluate search quality using offline metrics (e.g., NDCG, MRR, Precision/Recall) and online experiments, and build tooling that makes relevance experiments repeatable and measurable.
You Have
Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience in computer science or similar; or equivalent experience required
5+ years experience as a Software Engineer; with experience in modern software engineering; designing; devloping, testing and deploying scalable software applications within a variety of technologies and environments.
Expert knowledge of programming skills, including Java and Python
Demonstrated knowledge of distributed system design and integration patterns, , including sharding, replication, indexing, query routing, and caching in distributed search platforms
Familiarity with Agile/Scrum methodologies and Dev Ops Practices, and AI-assisted development tools
Experience with analyzing, interpreting and communicating complex problems and practices
Hands-on experience with embeddings and vector search, including ANN indexing and the practical tradeoffs between relevance, latency, and cost
Experience tuning search and AI-based customer experiences, using user behavior and measured outcomes to decide what to change
We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.
We are committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible work environment that includes both providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the application and hiring process as well as throughout the course of one’s employment, should you need a reasonable accommodation during the application and selection process, including, but not limited to use of our website, any part of the application, interview or hiring process, please advise us so that we can provide appropriate assistance.
W. W. Grainger · Kentucky, United States