Principal Search Engineer

  • Closed
  • US Company | Medium ( employees)
  • LATAM (100% remote)
  • 6+ years
  • Long-term (40h)
  • Productivity Software
  • Full Remote

Required skills

  • OpenSearch
  • Elasticsearch
  • Python
  • Node.js
  • CI/CD
  • LLM
  • AWS

Requirements

Must-haves

  • 6+ years of professional experience
  • Applied ML, or large-scale information retrieval experience
  • Experience with AWS OpenSearch or Elasticsearch
  • Experience with vector-based retrieval and hybrid ranking models
  • Proficiency with Python, Node.js, or similar languages
  • Experience with CI/CD pipelines
  • Hands-on experience with performance optimization, observability, and scalability engineering
  • Familiarity with enterprise data security, compliance, and privacy standards
  • Strong communication skills in both spoken and written English

Nice-to-haves

  • Startup experience
  • Deep knowledge of semantic search, embeddings, or LLM-based ranking
  • Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent

What you will work on

1. Improve search relevance and ranking

  • Enhance search quality across hybrid retrieval systems (BM25, vector/KNN)
  • Design and deploy re-ranking algorithms using machine learning and experimentation
  • Build data-driven evaluation frameworks and automated testing to track relevance and ranking improvements

2. Optimize performance and scalability

  • Reduce query latency and ensure system reliability at scale
  • Optimize OpenSearch schema, query routing, and AWS infrastructure for efficiency
  • Implement observability tools, performance metrics, and alerting systems to maintain SLAs (p99 < 2s, avg < 1s)

3. Drive ML-based search innovation

  • Improve embedding generation and retrieval pipelines using AWS Bedrock and ML tools
  • Develop automated workflows for re-embedding, re-indexing, and index validation with zero downtime
  • Ensure compliance with data governance and security standards (GDPR, SOC2, etc.)

4. Ensure quality, testing, and collaboration

  • Integrate performance, regression, and load testing into CI/CD workflows
  • Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to deliver production-ready updates
  • Document and communicate technical improvements