Lead Software Engineer, Search (Semantic Platform)

Role overview Lead the design and growth of a semantic search platform that combines keyword retrieval with vector-based search. This hands-on technical leadership role covers search architecture, relevance quality, and the data pipelines that keep indexes accurate and available under heavy traffic.

Responsibilities - Architect and build hybrid search capabilities using OpenSearch, combining traditional keyword matching with vector retrieval. - Tune and benchmark relevance, ranking, and neural or k-NN search configurations against search quality goals. - Evolve ingestion and indexing pipelines that use relational storage, messaging systems, and backend services to support vector data and reliable synchronization. - Set technical direction, establish engineering practices, and mentor engineers through complex design decisions. - Maintain low latency and high availability, and participate in the team’s on-call rotation.

Requirements - At least seven years of software development experience, including technical leadership or staff-level work. - Deep practical experience scaling and tuning OpenSearch or Elasticsearch clusters. - Demonstrated implementation experience with semantic search, text embeddings, vector databases, and hybrid scoring. - Strong backend development skills in a language such as Go, Scala, or Java; experience with PHP is also relevant. - Experience with relational databases, schema design, and distributed messaging such as Kafka or RabbitMQ for data and indexing workloads.

Nice to have - Familiarity with OpenSearch Neural Search, k-NN, or Learning to Rank; large-scale migrations from Elasticsearch to semantic search; and automated quality metrics such as NDCG or MRR. - Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud environments.

Benefits and work setup - The role is associated with an Austin hub and is also marked remote in the listing. - Published national base salary range: $182,000–$259,000. Variable compensation, equity, and benefits may also be available, subject to location and applicable policies.