Search Experience Manager

DigiKey is one of the fastest growing distributors of electronic components in the world. In addition to offering the broadest selection of in-stock electronic components and providing the best service possible to customers, employees have access to a highly competitive benefits package. To learn more, visit our benefits and perks page.

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Position Overview:The Search Experience Manager is responsible for defining, optimizing, and evolving how customers discover products and information across DigiKey's digital experiences. This role serves as the business owner for search and product discovery, leading the strategy, roadmap, and prioritization of capabilities that help customers find the right component quickly, confidently, and with minimal effort.
The role is focused on improving the end-to-end discovery experience through search relevance, navigation, user experience enhancements, experimentation, content discovery, and emerging technologies. Working closely with Product, Engineering, UX, Analytics, Data Science, Merchandising, and technical subject matter experts, the Search Experience Manager identifies opportunities to reduce customer effort and improve decision-making throughout the research and purchasing journey.
This position owns the search and discovery roadmap, including search relevance, ranking and sort strategies, query understanding, autocomplete, faceted navigation, filtering, content discovery, AI-assisted experiences, vendor evaluation, and continuous optimization programs. AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) are an important part of the long-term strategy and are considered alongside other approaches that improve how customers find, evaluate, and select products.
The Search Experience Manager is responsible for ensuring DigiKey remains the fastest and easiest place in the industry to find electronic components, whether through better search experiences, improved usability, richer content connections, or new technologies that simplify product discovery.
This is a hybrid position; regular weekly onsite attendance will be required.

Responsibilities:

Define the Product Discovery Vision

• Develop and maintain the strategic roadmap for DigiKey's search and discovery experience. 

• Establish a long-term vision for how customers find products, technical information, tools, and supporting resources. 

• Champion initiatives that reduce customer effort and improve findability across digital experiences. 

• Monitor market trends, customer behavior, and industry best practices related to search, discovery, and eCommerce. 

• Advocate for customer-centric solutions that simplify the journey from problem identification to product selection. 

Drive Search and Discovery Innovation 

• Identify and evaluate opportunities to improve product discovery through search relevance, UX enhancements, navigation improvements, personalization, content integration, and AI-assisted experiences. 

• Lead DigiKey's strategy for incorporating natural language search, and emerging technologies where they improve customer outcomes. 

• Partner with UX, Analytics, and Engineering teams to design, test, and validate new discovery experiences. 

• Develop experimentation plans and success metrics for new search and discovery capabilities. 

• Identify opportunities to leverage external solutions that improve customer outcomes and accelerate innovation. 

• Define and maintain search quality standards including relevance, recall, precision, and result effectiveness.  

• Partner with Analytics and Data Science teams to develop measurement frameworks and ongoing monitoring. 

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

• 8+ years of experience in eCommerce, search, merchandising, customer experience, B2B distribution, electronic components, or a related field. 

• Strong understanding of electronic components, engineering workflows, and the processes engineers use to research, evaluate, and select products. 

• Knowledge of how customers discover products through search, navigation, filtering, technical content, tools, and other digital experiences. 

• Demonstrated ability to identify customer pain points and opportunities to improve digital experiences. 

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to leverage data, customer feedback, and business insights to inform decisions. 

• Experience working cross-functionally with business, technical, and customer-facing teams. 

• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills. 

• Ability to balance customer needs, business objectives, and technical considerations when making recommendations and prioritization decisions. 

• Curiosity and a continuous improvement mindset focused on making complex experiences simpler and more intuitive for customers. 

• Associate degree (two-year degree) in business, engineering, marketing or related field  

Preferred 

• 12+ years of experience in eCommerce, search, merchandising, customer experience, B2B distribution, electronic components, or a related field. 

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Marketing, or a related field required. 

• Experience with site search, product discovery, navigation, or digital merchandising. 

• Experience using search analytics, customer behavior data, or experimentation to improve customer outcomes. 

• Familiarity with search relevance, recommendation engines, personalization, or AI-assisted search experiences. 

• Experience owning or contributing to a product roadmap, backlog, or digital optimization program. 

• Understanding of UX principles, usability testing, and customer research methods. 

• Experience evaluating third-party technology platforms or digital tools. 

• Background in electronics distribution, manufacturing, engineering, or technical product industries. 

Success Profile 

The ideal candidate is: 

• Passionate about helping customers find the right product with as little effort as possible. 

• Naturally curious about how engineers search, research, and make technical decisions. 

• Analytical enough to use data to identify problems and opportunities. 

• Practical and outcome-focused, favoring solutions that improve customer and business results. 

• Comfortable working through ambiguity and testing new ideas. 

• Collaborative and able to build alignment across teams with different perspectives. 

• Interested in emerging technologies while maintaining a focus on solving real customer problems. 

• Equally comfortable discussing customer behavior, search experiences, technical products, and business outcomes.

Physical Requirements:

• Generally, spend the workday sitting at a workstation and operating computer devices, such as, but not limited to keyboard, mouse and screen
• Generally, spend the workday performing repetitive motions that involve or affect the hands, head, and other parts of your body

Compensation:

The base pay range for this position is:

$66,500

to

$91,500

Many factors influence the determination of base pay within a range, including the candidate’s work experience in related roles; the candidate’s knowledge, skills, capabilities, and performance; the relative pay of other DigiKey employees in similar roles; and the budget available for the position.

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Must be authorized to work in the U.S. without the need for employment-based immigration sponsorship, now or in the future. The employer does not offer immigration sponsorship for this opportunity.

DigiKey Electronics is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We encourage all qualified candidates, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities, and to apply and be considered for open positions.

If you are an applicant with a disability and need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact Human Resources at 1-800-338-4105 or [email protected].

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