Staff Backend Engineer, Search

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Staff Backend Engineer, Search based in the United States.

As a Staff Backend Engineer, Search, you will help shape the core search infrastructure behind a modern AI-powered productivity platform.

You will design, scale, and optimize backend search services built around Postgres and OpenSearch.

Your work will directly influence search relevance, speed, freshness, and the quality of next-generation semantic experiences.

You will tackle complex distributed systems challenges involving real-time ingestion, indexing, query performance, and search serving at scale.

Working closely with AI, backend, and product teams, you will help integrate advanced search capabilities into new product experiences.

You will also establish measurement frameworks and engineering practices that continuously improve search quality and reliability.

This is a high-impact opportunity for an experienced search engineer to influence architecture and build foundational technology used at significant scale.

Accountabilities

• Design, implement, and evolve robust backend search solutions capable of scaling with a rapidly growing user base.
• Architect and optimize search infrastructure built on technologies such as OpenSearch, Elasticsearch, and Postgres.
• Improve search relevance, accuracy, latency, and overall result quality to help users quickly find the information they need.
• Build and optimize real-time indexing and ingestion pipelines so search results remain current and reliable.
• Develop measurement and evaluation frameworks that provide actionable insight into search quality and guide continuous improvement.
• Build and enhance vector search capabilities, including semantic search and embedding-based experiences, to support next-generation AI-powered functionality.
• Optimize query parsing, indexing strategies, relevance tuning, and search-serving performance across high-scale environments.
• Collaborate with AI, backend engineering, and product teams to integrate search capabilities into new features and workflows.
• Investigate and resolve complex search-related production issues, ensuring reliability and performance under demanding workloads.
• Provide technical leadership on search architecture, engineering decisions, and scalable solutions that maintain performance as usage grows.
• Contribute to the evolution of search technology and help establish engineering practices that improve maintainability, observability, and operational excellence.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.
• 7+ years of professional experience as a search engineer or in a closely related backend engineering role.
• Strong hands-on production experience with OpenSearch or Elasticsearch; experience with Solr may also be considered.
• Proven experience designing and operating high-scale, real-time data ingestion and search-serving systems within backend service environments.
• Strong understanding of query parsing, indexing, relevance tuning, search optimization, and information retrieval concepts.
• Demonstrated experience measuring, evaluating, and improving search quality using data-driven approaches.
• Experience designing search architectures that maintain strong performance and reliability under heavy workloads.
• Strong software engineering and problem-solving abilities, with the capacity to troubleshoot complex distributed search systems.
• Experience collaborating effectively with backend engineers, AI/ML specialists, product managers, and other cross-functional stakeholders.
• Familiarity with search ranking, relevance algorithms, and information retrieval is highly desirable.
• Hands-on experience with vector embeddings and semantic search implementations is preferred.
• Experience applying machine learning or natural language processing techniques to improve search relevance is a plus.
• Experience with TypeScript in backend systems is desirable.
• Ability to operate at a high technical level while contributing to architectural direction and long-term search strategy.

Benefits

• Estimated base compensation of $250,000-$300,000 USD, with actual compensation determined by factors including location, experience, education, skills, and interview performance.
• Equity opportunities.
• 401(k) plan.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Flexible spending and other spending accounts.
• Life and disability insurance coverage.
• Paid parental leave.
• Flexible paid time off.
• Enhanced employee assistance program.
• Employee wellness stipend.
• Professional development stipend.
• Opportunity to work on AI-native products and advanced search technologies.
• Collaborative environment with opportunities to work across backend engineering, AI, and product teams.