Senior Manager, Search & Discovery

REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.)•Seattle, WA

21h

About The Position

The Senior Manager, Search and Discovery is accountable for optimizing how customers discover, evaluate, and purchase products across REI's digital channels including desktop, mobile web and App. This role serves as the business owner for product discovery experiences, including Search, Navigation, Browse, and Go to Market Commercial experiences. The role partners closely with Merchandising, Marketing, Product Management, UX, Analytics, and external technology partners to improve discoverability, customer experience, conversion, and digital demand within Search and Browse. Acting as the primary business stakeholder for REI's search and navigation ecosystem, this role translates customer needs and business opportunities into prioritized initiatives that improve customer outcomes and commercial performance. While Product Management owns platform capabilities, technical product roadmaps, and engineering delivery, the Senior Manager, Search and Navigation owns the business strategy, governance, optimization, and performance outcomes of search and browse experiences across REI.com, Mobile Web, and App supporting Merchandising and Go to Market.

Requirements

10+ years of Digital Commerce, Ecommerce, Digital Merchandising, Search & Discovery, Product Management partnership, or related experience.
5+ years of progressive leadership experience leading teams, influencing cross-functional stakeholders, and delivering measurable business results.
Proven experience leveraging customer behavior data, web analytics, experimentation, and business insights to improve discoverability, customer engagement, conversion, and digital demand.
Strong understanding of digital discovery ecosystems, including search, navigation, browse, taxonomy, product attribution, digital merchandising, , and conversion optimization.
Demonstrated ability to develop and execute strategies that improve customer experiences while achieving commercial objectives, including demand, conversion, profitability, and customer satisfaction.
Experience partnering with Product Management, Engineering, UX, Analytics, Merchandising, and external technology vendors to influence priorities and deliver business outcomes.
Proven success translating customer needs, business opportunities, and operational challenges into scalable solutions, business cases, and organizational priorities.
Demonstrated ability to establish governance, operational processes, and scalable practices that improve organizational effectiveness and customer outcomes.
Strong leadership skills with a track record of building trust, developing talent, leading through ambiguity, and driving organizational change.
Experience managing complex cross-functional initiatives while balancing customer needs, business priorities, and technical consideration

Nice To Haves

Experience with taxonomy, information architecture, product attribution, AI-enabled discovery, or emerging digital commerce capabilities.
Experience in omnichannel retail, specialty retail, marketplace, or large-scale ecommerce environments.
Experience with search and navigation platforms such as Constructor, Bloomreach, Algolia, Coveo, Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, or similar technologies.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute the discovery and conversion strategy across search, navigation, and browse
Establish annual and quarterly business plans to improve search demand, search conversion, browse engagement, and product discoverability within Go to Market and Merchandising.
Identify opportunities through customer behavior analysis, search insights, digital analytics, and merchandising performance data.
Define business needs, customer problems, operational requirements, and success criteria that inform product prioritization and feature development.
Partner with Product Management to influence product roadmaps and advocate for business priorities that improve customer outcomes and commercial performance.
Create and maintain governance frameworks for digital merchandising, navigation, search and navigation operations.
Develop optimization roadmaps and business-user testing strategies for digital merchandising, business rules, landing destinations, navigation structures, and browse experiences.
Establish adoption plans for search and navigation platform capabilities, ensuring the business fully leverages available tools and functionality.
Coordinate cross-functional search and browse initiatives across Merchandising, Marketing and Analytics to drive best-in-class playbooks for conversion driving landing experiences for both internal and external traffic driving initiatives
Search demand growth and search-attributed revenue.
Search conversion, browse conversion, and customer discoverability performance.
Optimization of digital merchandising strategies, business rules, ranking algorithms, and product visibility.
Navigation strategy, governance, operations and productivity across desktop, mobile web, and App experiences.
Search platform business ownership, adoption, and vendor partnership management supporting the business.
Analysis of customer search behavior, search exits, search abandonment, and browse performance to inform assortment opportunities
Measurement and reporting of search and navigation business impact, including measurable optimization opportunities.
Cross-functional alignment between business teams, Product Management, UX, Analytics, and external technology partners.
Establishment of scalable operational processes supporting discovery, findability, and conversion optimization.
Lead, coach, and develop direct reports, setting clear priorities, expectations, and performance outcomes aligned to Search and Navigation business goals.
Build team capability through regular feedback, development planning, workload prioritization, and opportunities for increased ownership across search, browse, and discovery workstreams.
Serve as the primary business stakeholder and strategic partner to Product Management for search, navigation, browse, and discovery experiences.
Represent REI's business priorities and customer needs with external Search and Navigation vendors, including Constructor.
Partner with Digital Merchandising teams to improve assortment discoverability, category performance, and product visibility.
Collaborate with Analytics teams to identify opportunities and measure business impact.
Partner with Marketing and Digital Merchandising on landing destination optimization to improve findability, demand and conversion
Influence organizational priorities through data-driven recommendations, business cases, and strategic planning.