Staff Backend Engineer - Search FX (Discovery Experience)
Core
Architecting and building high-scale, low-latency search, retrieval, and personalization systems for a global wholesale marketplace to help independent retailers discover products.
Role type
Staff Backend Engineer (Search & Discovery)
Builds
Retailer-facing search surfaces, recommendation engines, and Gen-AI experiences (LLM-powered query understanding, natural language search).
Domain
Wholesale e-commerce, Search, Machine Learning, Gen-AI
Deliverable
production ML models | product features | infrastructure
Required skills
Kotlin, Java, high-performance backend systems, Protocol Buffers, MySQL, Elasticsearch, Lucene, LLM integration, system architecture, cross-functional leadership
Preferred skills
Semantic search, hybrid search frameworks, React Server Components, SDUI, observability
Technologies
Kotlin, Java 16, Hibernate, Guice, Jersey, Elasticsearch, FAISS, Redis, DynamoDB, AWS, Kubernetes, Buildkite, Datadog
Responsibilities
Define end-to-end architecture for search and discovery; integrate LLMs for query understanding and natural language search; optimize retrieval performance and latency; launch AI-driven features like 'Search Missions'; bridge AI and UX for dynamic search layouts; ensure reliability and observability of the search funnel.
Seniority
Staff, technical architect & mentor