Manager, Software Engineering - Search & Recommendations

Figma is growing our team of passionate creatives and builders on a mission to make design accessible to all. Figma’s platform helps teams bring ideas to life—whether you're brainstorming, creating a prototype, translating designs into code, or iterating with AI. From idea to product, Figma empowers teams to streamline workflows, move faster, and work together in real time from anywhere in the world. If you're excited to shape the future of design and collaboration, join us!

The Search & Recommendations team builds the search platforms and infrastructure used across Figma. Our team is responsible for providing Figma AI agents with the most relevant context from across the Figma ecosystem—from design system assets to code—in order to complete tasks with high quality and low latency. And, our team maintains features critical to every designer’s workflow, including visual, asset, and file search. We’re an inter-disciplinary team that works across the stack, from training reranking models to managing our feature store platform to keeping our search infrastructure reliable as we scale.

We’re looking for a seasoned engineering leader to support & grow our team, define & execute on our technical strategy, and collaborate with teams across engineering to build cutting-edge AI features.

This is a full time role that can be held from one of our US hubs or remotely in the United States.

What you'll do at Figma:

• Support a team of engineers with skillsets ranging from infrastructure to model development, including hiring and career development.
• Partner with our product engineering, infrastructure, data science, and product management teams to deliver cutting-edge Figma AI features.
• Own the team’s technical strategy, roadmap, and goals.
• Roll up your sleeves as needed to get involved with the technical details and improve execution efficiency.
• Grow your career within an engaged and creative engineering community.
• Build an inclusive, diverse team and culture through hiring, community events, and programs in partnership with teams across Figma.

We’d love to hear from you if you have:

• 4+ years of engineering management experience leading high-performing, fast-moving teams, ideally in the AI space.
• 8+ years of total engineering experience, ideally reaching a staff engineering level as an individual contributor.
• Prior experience building search, recommendation, or AI systems as an engineering manager or individual contributor.
• A proven track record of motivating, mentoring, and guiding experienced AI engineering leads.

While it’s not required, it’s an added plus if you also have:

• Expertise in building and maintaining systems built on top of OpenSearch or ElasticSearch.
• Experience working with LLMs at production scale.

At Figma, one of our values is Grow as you go. We believe in hiring smart, curious people who are excited to learn and develop their skills. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with the points outlined in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Pay Transparency Disclosure

If based in Figma’s San Francisco or New York hub offices, this role has the annual base salary range stated below.    

Job level and actual compensation will be decided based on factors including, but not limited to, individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process (including skills and prior relevant experience, potential impact, and scope of role), market demands, and specific work location. The listed range is a guideline, and the range for this role may be modified. For roles that are available to be filled remotely, the pay range is localized according to employee work location by a factor of between 80% and 100% of range. Please discuss your specific work location with your recruiter for more information. 

Figma offers equity to employees, as well a competitive package of additional benefits, including health, dental & vision, retirement with company contribution, parental leave & reproductive or family planning support, mental health & wellness benefits, generous PTO, company recharge days, a learning & development stipend, a work from home stipend, and cell phone reimbursement.  Figma also offers sales incentive pay for most sales roles and an annual bonus plan for eligible non-sales roles. Figma’s compensation and benefits are subject to change and may be modified in the future.

Annual Base Salary Range:

$258,000—$376,000 USD

At Figma we celebrate and support our differences. We know employing a team rich in diverse thoughts, experiences, and opinions allows our employees, our product and our community to flourish. Figma is an equal opportunity workplace - we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity/expression, veteran status , or any other characteristic protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.

We will work to ensure individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to apply for a role, participate in the interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. If you require accommodation, please reach out to View email address on boards.greenhouse.io . These modifications enable an individual with a disability to have an equal opportunity not only to get a job, but successfully perform their job tasks to the same extent as people without disabilities. 

Examples of accommodations include but are not limited to: 

• Holding interviews in an accessible location
• Enabling closed captioning on video conferencing
• Ensuring all written communication be compatible with screen readers
• Changing the mode or format of interviews 

To ensure the integrity of our hiring process and facilitate a more personal connection, we require all candidates keep their cameras on during video interviews. Additionally, if hired you will be required to attend in person onboarding.

By applying for this job, the candidate acknowledges and agrees that any personal data contained in their application or supporting materials will be processed in accordance with Figma's Candidate Privacy Notice .