Lead Research Engineer, Search & Retrieval

Thomson Reuters

Lead research engineer building production search, retrieval, and agentic AI infrastructure for Thomson Reuters’ legal, tax, and regulatory content. Leading engineers, experiments, evaluation, and scalable AWS services.

Posted 8/14/2026full-timeNew York City • Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Texas • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $158,000 - $293,000 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

Use this summary to align your resume positioning with the role.

Demonstrates expertise in building and operating search and retrieval systems, with a strong focus on OpenSearch, Vespa, and AWS. Proven ability to lead technical projects, mentor teams, and influence architectural decisions while ensuring high-quality outcomes.

Highest-signal resume keywords

OpenSearch ExpertiseProduction API DevelopmentSearch Experiment DesignPython Software EngineeringTechnical Project Leadership

ATS Keywords

Tailor your resume

Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills

Search Systems DevelopmentRetrieval Architecture DesignRanking Systems ImplementationDistributed Systems EngineeringIndexing and Ingestion TechniquesRelevance Metrics EvaluationAgentic Coding Tools UsageA/B Testing MethodologiesVector Search KnowledgeHybrid Retrieval Techniques

Soft Skills

Team LeadershipMentorshipCollaborationCommunication

Tools & Technologies

AWSOpenSearchVespaElasticsearchSolrLucene

Industry Keywords

Search and RetrievalMachine Learning CollaborationProductionizationQuality MeasurementAgentic AI Workflows

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSDistributed SystemsElasticSearchPython

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own end-to-end delivery of significant search and retrieval projects, including outcome, quality, timeline, and live-system health
Act as technical lead for a squad of 3–5 engineers by setting direction, breaking down work, reviewing designs and code, and unblocking the team
Partner with applied scientists and feed production evidence back into research
Run the exploration → POC → proof of value → productionization loop and determine what to pursue
Design and build retrieval architectures, ingestion and indexing pipelines, and ranking and re-ranking systems on OpenSearch and Vespa
Build retrieval infrastructure and search agents for agentic AI workflows, including retrieval APIs, agentic query planning, multi-step retrieval, RAG pipelines, hybrid and semantic retrieval, and query understanding
Build offline relevance harnesses, golden and labeled sets, online A/B tests, and end-to-end agent quality measurement
Diagnose retrieval and agent quality failures across the pipeline
Build and operate production APIs and backend services on AWS
Identify and communicate timeline and architecture risks
Influence architecture decisions through design reviews, partner-team alignment, and mentorship

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
~7+ years building production software, including search, retrieval, or ranking systems that were shipped and owned
Proven track record leading technical projects, delivering through other engineers, and influencing architecture across teams
Deep hands-on production expertise in OpenSearch or Vespa, or comparable depth in Elasticsearch, Solr, or Lucene
Experience designing search experiments, relevance and ranking metrics, offline evaluation harnesses, and online A/B measurement
Outstanding software engineering skills in Python
Routine use of agentic coding tools with judgment about validating their output
Experience designing, operating, and scaling production APIs and large-scale distributed systems on AWS
Knowledge of indexing and ingestion at large-corpus scale, vector search, embeddings, semantic and hybrid retrieval, and production RAG infrastructure
Track record collaborating with applied scientists or ML practitioners and productionizing their models and approaches

Benefits

Comp & perks

Flexible hybrid working environment
Flexible work arrangements, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year
Flexible vacation
Two company-wide Mental Health Days off
Headspace app access
Retirement savings
Tuition reimbursement
Employee incentive programs
Resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing
Two paid volunteer days off annually
Pro-bono consulting project opportunities
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiative opportunities
U.S. health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance programs
Competitive 401(k) plan with company match
Sick and safe paid time off
Paid holidays
Parental leave
Sabbatical leave
Optional hospital, accident and sickness insurance
Optional life and AD&D insurance
Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts
Fitness reimbursement
Employee Assistance Program
Group Legal Identity Theft Protection benefit
529 Plan access
Commuter benefits
Adoption & Surrogacy Assistance
Employee Stock Purchase Plan