Senior/Staff Backend Engineer – Search

SafetyCulture

Senior Software Engineer responsible for building large-scale search systems at SafetyCulture. Designing, leading architecture, and delivering innovative search solutions for a diverse user base.

Posted 7/2/2026full-timeSydney • 🇦🇺 AustraliaSeniorWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSElasticSearchGoPostgresReactTypeScript

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design, build and operate large-scale search across front end and back end, in a stack of React, TypeScript, Golang, PostgreSQL and OpenSearch running on AWS.
Own the search relevance and retrieval-quality. Define how relevance is measured, then drive it up through ranking, query pipelines, and tuning.
Lead search architecture: indexing strategy, hybrid retrieval (combining lexical text search with semantic/vector search), embeddings, and ranking, including the trade-offs each involves.
Build AI-native applications, connecting retrieval to LLM-powered experiences (e.g. RAG), and stay at the bleeding edge of agentic coding tools.
Provide technical leadership guiding search architecture, execution, and cross-functional collaboration to deliver impactful outcomes.
Own search feature delivery end-to-end: breaking down requirements with stakeholders, partnering with Product and Design, supporting other engineers, and ensuring successful delivery.
Articulate effort-vs-impact trade-offs, including build-vs-buy decisions.
Keep search operable at scale, performance, observability, and cost as data volume grows.
Drive high-performance team outcomes by setting rigorous engineering standards, mentoring peers, and improving team practices for quality, velocity, and collaboration.
Demonstrate SafetyCulture's values (Think Customer; Open, Honest, Always; Better as a Team; Be Bold, Bring Action).

Requirements

What you’ll need

Deep search / information-retrieval expertise: lexical text search (inverted indexes, BM25-style ranking), semantic and vector search (embeddings, approximate nearest-neighbour), hybrid retrieval, and relevance tuning.
Hands-on with RAG: chunking, retrieval pipelines, grounding model outputs, and evaluating retrieval quality.
Proven track record building search capability into new or existing applications that retrieve information at scale in a multi-tenanted architecture.
Strong OpenSearch / Elasticsearch operating experience at scale, including how segment merging works and the operational challenges that architecture presents.
A systems thinker who decomposes large problems into small ones and teaches less experienced engineers to do the same.
Works autonomously and is comfortable making the call without waiting on sign-off; co-owns technical and product direction rather than building to someone else's spec.
Influences where the product goes, not just how it gets built.
Thrives in a small team at a fast pace, comfortable with little formal process and structure.
If you have used turbopuffer in production before, let us know!

Benefits

Comp & perks

Equity with high growth potential, and a competitive salary.
Access to professional and personal training and development opportunities.
Participation in hackathons, workshops, and lunch & learn sessions.
Community involvement, open source work, attending talks and events, and experimenting with new technologies

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

ReactTypeScriptGolangPostgreSQLOpenSearchLexical Text SearchSemantic SearchRelevance TuningRAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)Multi-Tenanted Architecture

Soft Skills

Systems ThinkingAutonomous Decision-MakingInfluencing Product DirectionCollaborationMentoring