Company Overview Docusign brings agreements to life. Over 1.5 million customers and more than a billion people in over 180 countries use Docusign solutions to accelerate the process of doing business and simplify people’s lives. With intelligent agreement management, Docusign unleashes business-critical data that is trapped inside of documents. Until now, these were disconnected from business systems of record, costing businesses time, money, and opportunity. Using Docusign’s Intelligent Agreement Management platform, companies can create, commit, and manage agreements with solutions created by the #1 company in e-signature and contract lifecycle management (CLM). What you'll do As the Director of Engineering for Search, you serve as the strategic architect behind the discovery engine that powers the world’s most critical agreements. By bridging the gap between robust distributed infrastructure and advanced ML features, you ensure that millions of users can instantaneously extract intelligence and value from their vast repositories of contracts. You drive business growth by transforming Search from a utility into a competitive advantage, collaborating closely with applied scientists and directly impacting the scalability of our entire platform. This position is a people manager role reporting to the VP of Engineering, AI. Responsibility Own the strategic roadmap and execution for Docusign’s search infrastructure, ensuring the platform is scalable, resilient, and capable of indexing millions of global agreements Lead and scale a high-performing, geo-distributed engineering team, fostering a culture of technical excellence while mentoring future leaders within the organization Drive operational excellence and system performance by optimizing indexing latency, search relevance, and efficiency across multiple cloud providers Collaborate with Product, UX, and ML teams to translate complex customer discovery needs into intuitive, secure, and robust search experiences Job Designation Hybrid: Employee divides their time between in-office and remote work. Access to an office location is required. (Frequency: Minimum 2 days per week; may vary by team but will be weekly in-office expectation) Positions at Docusign are assigned a job designation of either In Office, Hybrid or Remote and are specific to the role/job. Preferred job designations are not guaranteed when changing positions within Docusign. Docusign reserves the right to change a position's job designation depending on business needs and as permitted by local law. What you bring Basic Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field 12+ years of experience in software engineering leadership, specifically managing teams focused on large-scale distributed systems Experience with Elasticsearch, including cluster tuning, index design, and scaling search workloads in a production environment Proven track record of delivering search-related infrastructure or features that handle high-volume data ingestion and complex retrieval requirements Experience collaborating with ML teams to integrate models which improve search relevance and ranking Experience with cloud-native architecture (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and managing the total cost of ownership for massive search clusters Preferred Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate complex search metrics (e.g., NDCG, latency percentiles) into clear business outcomes for executive stakeholders Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field with a focus on Information Retrieval or Distributed Systems Experience implementing vector databases for multimodal search Background in LegalTech or FinTech, specifically working with OCR, unstructured document indexing, or contract lifecycle management (CLM) Experience in a reporting structure where you have successfully managed managers or multiple high-impact engineering pods Wage Transparency Pay for this position is based on a number of factors including geographic location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Based on applicable legislation, the below details pay ranges in the following locations: California: $202,100.00 - $299,625.00 base salary Washington, Maryland, New Jersey and New York (including NYC metro area): $202,100.00 - $299,625.00 base salary This role is also eligible for the following: Bonus: Sales personnel are eligible for variable incentive pay dependent on their achievement of pre-established sales goals. Non-Sales roles are eligible for a company bonus plan, which is calculated as a percentage of eligible wages and dependent on company performance. Stock: This role is eligible to receive Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). Global benefits provide options for the following: Paid Time Off: earned time off, as well as paid company holidays based on region Paid Parental Leave: take up to six months off with your child after birth, adoption or foster care placement Full Health Benefits Plans: options for 100% employer paid and minimum employee contribution health plans from day one of employment Retirement Plans: select retirement and pension programs with potential for employer contributions Learning and Development: options for coaching, online courses and education reimbursements Compassionate Care Leave: paid time off following the loss of a loved one and other life-changing events Life at Docusign Working here Docusign is committed to building trust and making the world more agreeable for our employees, customers and the communities in which we live and work. You can count on us to listen, be honest, and try our best to do what’s right, every day. At Docusign, everything is equal. We each have a responsibility to ensure every team member has an equal opportunity to succeed, to be heard, to exchange ideas openly, to build lasting relationships, and to do the work of their life. Best of all, you will be able to feel deep pride in the work you do, because your contribution helps us make the world better than we found it. And for that, you’ll be loved by us, our customers, and the world in which we live. Accommodation Docusign is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application procedures. If you need such an accommodation, or a religious accommodation, during the application process, please contact us at accommodations@docusign.com. If you experience any issues, concerns, or technical difficulties during the application process please get in touch with our Talent organization at taops@docusign.com for assistance. Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice States Not Eligible for Employment This position is not eligible for employment in the following states: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming. Equal Opportunity Employer It's important to us that we build a talented team that is as diverse as our customers and where all employees feel a deep sense of belonging and thrive. We encourage great talent who bring a range of perspectives to apply for our open positions. Docusign is an Equal Opportunity Employer and makes hiring decisions based on experience, skill, aptitude and a can-do approach. We will not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, color, age, sex, religion, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, physical or mental disability, registered domestic partner status, caregiver status, marital status, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected category. EEO Know Your Rights poster #LI-Hybrid
Director, Software Engineering
DocuSign · Enterprise · Seattle, WA +2 · Engineering
Director of Engineering for Search, responsible for the discovery engine powering agreements. Bridges distributed infrastructure and ML features, collaborates with applied scientists, and impacts platform scalability. Drives business growth by transforming Search into a competitive advantage.
What you'd actually do
- Own the strategic roadmap and execution for Docusign’s search infrastructure, ensuring the platform is scalable, resilient, and capable of indexing millions of global agreements
- Lead and scale a high-performing, geo-distributed engineering team, fostering a culture of technical excellence while mentoring future leaders within the organization
- Drive operational excellence and system performance by optimizing indexing latency, search relevance, and efficiency across multiple cloud providers
- Collaborate with Product, UX, and ML teams to translate complex customer discovery needs into intuitive, secure, and robust search experiences
Skills
Required
- software engineering leadership
- managing teams
- large-scale distributed systems
- Elasticsearch
- cloud-native architecture
- AWS
- Azure
- GCP
Nice to have
- Excellent communication skills
- Master’s degree in Computer Science
- Information Retrieval
- Distributed Systems
- vector databases
- multimodal search
- LegalTech
- FinTech
- OCR
- unstructured document indexing
- contract lifecycle management (CLM)
- managed managers
- multiple high-impact engineering pods
What the JD emphasized
- Experience with Elasticsearch, including cluster tuning, index design, and scaling search workloads in a production environment
- Proven track record of delivering search-related infrastructure or features that handle high-volume data ingestion and complex retrieval requirements
- Experience collaborating with ML teams to integrate models which improve search relevance and ranking
- Experience with cloud-native architecture (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and managing the total cost of ownership for massive search clusters
Other signals
- search infrastructure
- ML features
- ML teams
- search relevance
- ranking