Staff Backend Engineer, Search

ClickUp

Staff Engineer optimizing search capabilities for ClickUp's AI-driven productivity platform. Designing search solutions and collaborating with teams to enhance user experience.

Posted 4/30/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $250,000 - $300,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

ElasticSearchTypeScript

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design and implement robust search solutions that scale with our rapidly growing user base
Improve search relevance, accuracy, and speed to deliver the most relevant results to users at blazing fast speeds
Improve out real-time indexing pipelines to ensure search results remain up-to-date
Create measurement frameworks to evaluate and improve search quality
Build and enhance vector search capabilities to power next-generation search experiences
Collaborate with AI, backend, and product teams to integrate search into new features
Troubleshoot complex search-related issues at scale
Mentor junior engineers and contribute to engineering best practices

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field
7+ years of experience as a search engineer or in a directly related role
Strong expertise in search technologies, particularly OpenSearch / ElasticSearch
Experience measuring and optimizing search quality
Experience with high-volume, distributed data processing systems
Proven ability to optimize query parsing, indexing, and relevance tuning for search systems
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate effectively across teams
Hands-on experience with vector embeddings and semantic search implementations (preferred)
Experience with TypeScript in backend systems (preferred)
Track record of architecting search solutions that maintain performance under heavy load (preferred)
Experience applying machine learning and NLP to enhance search relevance (preferred)
Knowledge of information retrieval concepts and search evaluation metrics (preferred)

Benefits

Comp & perks

Equity
401k
Health, Dental, and Vision insurance
Spending accounts
Life & Disability
Paid parental leave
Flexible paid time off
Enhanced employee assistance program
Employee wellness stipend
Professional development stipend

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

search technologiesOpenSearchElasticSearchquery parsingindexingrelevance tuningvector embeddingssemantic searchmachine learningNLP

Soft Skills

analytical skillsproblem-solving skillscommunication skillscollaboration skillsmentoring

Certifications

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science