Senior Software Engineer – Professional Archive Search, AI

Smarsh

Senior Software Engineer on the Professional Archive Search team blending traditional and AI-driven search technologies at Smarsh. Collaborating globally to deliver high-performance search capabilities.

Posted 4/22/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $95,000 - $120,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

CloudDistributed SystemsElasticSearchGrafanaKafkaKubernetesSplunk

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Support and empower your team by contributing to a collaborative, inclusive, and respectful work environment
Partner with engineers and stakeholders to design and deliver scalable search and data solutions
Help bridge traditional lexical search and modern semantic search approaches
Design and implement hybrid search strategies combining keyword-based and vector-based retrieval
Work with vector databases to manage and query high-dimensional embeddings
Design and optimize retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, including handling long documents and retrieval quality
Contribute to knowledge graph–driven approaches to enhance search relevance and data relationships
Build and maintain high-throughput streaming data pipelines (e.g., Kafka) for real-time ingestion and indexing
Contribute to architectural decisions that improve system scalability, reliability, and observability
Participate in a shared on-call rotation to support service reliability and incident response with a focus on learning and prevention
Collaborate with Product and Engineering to define technical requirements, timelines, and deliverables
Apply modern engineering practices, including Agile methodologies, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps principles
Review code, identify areas for improvement, and help reduce technical debt
Troubleshoot and resolve production issues to maintain high availability and performance
Stay current with emerging technologies in search, AI, and data systems, and evaluate their impact
Deploy and manage applications in Kubernetes environments
Monitor application health and performance using tools such as Splunk, Datadog, and Grafana

Requirements

What you’ll need

Experience building and operating software in a modern private cloud-based environment
Strong background in distributed systems and search or data-intensive applications
Experience with search technologies such as Lucene, Elasticsearch, or Solr, including how indexing and query systems work
Hands-on experience with vector similarity search and vector databases (e.g., Qdrant, Milvus, Vespa, or similar)
Familiarity with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) concepts and architectures
Understanding of knowledge graphs or graph-based data modeling concepts
Experience designing scalable data pipelines and working with streaming technologies such as Kafka
A collaborative mindset, with openness to feedback and different perspectives
Understanding of modern software development practices and Agile methodologies
Ability to communicate technical concepts, progress, and trade-offs clearly
Comfort working in evolving environments where requirements may change over time
A proactive and thoughtful approach to solving complex problems

Benefits

Comp & perks

Healthcare insurance: We provide medical, dental, and vision insurance, and a flexible spending account that allows you to set aside pre-tax dollars to pay for eligible out-of-pocket expenses.
Stock options.
Personal time off: A healthy work-life balance is critical to your success at the office. Smarsh offers a “take-what-you-need” time off policy as well as flexible work arrangements.
401K Match: Smarsh provides a 4% 401K match for which employees are fully vested on day one.
Sabbatical: The Smarsh sabbatical programme provides a time to recharge, study or simply do something you are passionate about away from the workplace. Employees are eligible after six years of service.
Recognition: We’re big on kudos for a job well done. Our employee-recognition programme enables co-workers to nominate their peers who best embody our core values for recognition.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

search technologiesvector databasesretrieval-augmented generationdata pipelinesstreaming technologiesdistributed systemsindexingquery systemsvector similarity searchknowledge graphs

Soft Skills

collaborative mindsetopenness to feedbackcommunicationproblem-solvingadaptabilityteam supportrespectful work environmenttechnical concept communicationproactive approachthoughtful approach