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Search Retrieval Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Experience building production data pipelines, ETL systems, or search/retrieval infrastructure ... Background in developer tools, infra, or technical products * Experience handling unstructured or ...

Sr Gen AI Engineer

Houston, TX · On-site

$99K - $137K/yr

Design RAG pipelines (embeddings, vector search, retrieval systems) * Deploy scalable applications ... CI/CD and DevOps exposure What We're Looking For * Proven experience shipping AI solutions (not ...

Data & AI Engineer

Chantilly, VA · On-site

$118K - $142K/yr

Our core services include systems engineering technical advice, technical support, and ... Intelligent search, retrieval, and summarization of internal documents and data * Integration of ...

Data & AI Engineer

Chantilly, VA · Remote

$118K - $142K/yr

Our core services include systems engineering technical advice, technical support, and ... Intelligent search, retrieval, and summarization of internal documents and data * Integration of ...

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Search Retrieval Engineer information

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Search Retrieval Engineer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Search Retrieval Engineer, you need a strong background in computer science, information retrieval, and algorithms, often supported by a relevant degree or experience. Familiarity with search platforms like Elasticsearch, Solr, and Lucene, as well as programming languages such as Python or Java, is typically required. Strong problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and effective communication set standout professionals apart in this field. These skills ensure the development and optimization of efficient, user-friendly search systems that deliver accurate results at scale.

What are Search Retrieval Engineers?

Search Retrieval Engineers are specialized software engineers who design, develop, and optimize systems that retrieve relevant information from large datasets, such as search engines or document databases. They work on improving the accuracy, speed, and efficiency of search algorithms, often incorporating natural language processing and machine learning techniques. Their responsibilities may also include indexing data, tuning ranking models, and ensuring that users can find relevant results quickly. Search Retrieval Engineers play a crucial role in organizations that handle vast amounts of information, such as tech companies, e-commerce platforms, and research institutions.

What are some common challenges faced by Search Retrieval Engineers when optimizing search relevance?

Search Retrieval Engineers often encounter challenges such as balancing precision and recall, dealing with ambiguous or sparse queries, and ensuring search results remain accurate as content and user behaviors evolve. Another frequent hurdle is integrating new algorithms or data sources without disrupting existing performance. Collaboration with data scientists, product managers, and UX designers is critical to iteratively test and refine ranking models, ensuring the search experience meets user needs while maintaining system efficiency.

What is the difference between Search Retrieval Engineer vs Data Scientist?

AspectSearch Retrieval EngineerData Scientist
Required CredentialsBachelor's or master's in CS, info retrieval, or related fields; experience with search algorithmsBachelor's or master's in CS, statistics, or related fields; proficiency in data analysis
Work EnvironmentTech companies, search engines, e-commerce platformsResearch labs, tech firms, finance, healthcare
Industry UsageSearch engine development, information retrieval systemsData analysis, predictive modeling, business insights

Search Retrieval Engineers focus on developing and optimizing search algorithms and systems, while Data Scientists analyze data to extract insights. Both roles require strong technical skills and often overlap in data handling, but their primary goals differ: search efficiency versus data-driven decision making.

Infographic showing various Search Retrieval Engineer job openings in the United States as of May 2026, with employment types broken down into 89% Full Time, 8% Part Time, and 3% Contract. Highlights an 86% Physical, 5% Hybrid, and 9% Remote job distribution.
Senior Staff ML Engineer, Search & Recommendation

Senior Staff ML Engineer, Search & Recommendation

Reddit

Remote

$266K - $372K/yr

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Retirement, PTO

Posted 17 days ago


Job description

Reddit is a community of communities. It's built on shared interests, passion, and trust, and is home to the most open and authentic conversations on the internet. Every day, Reddit users submit, vote, and comment on the topics they care most about. With 100,000+ active communities and approximately 126 million daily active unique visitors, Reddit is one of the internet's largest sources of information. For more information, visit www.redditinc.com.
The Search Recommendations & Relevance team at Reddit is building the next generation of search - one that goes beyond "10 blue links" to deliver real answers, perspectives and conversation from the world's largest corpus of human conversation. We power both Reddit Search and our AI-native Search experience, redefining how users discover and interact with information.
Redditors produce the most amazing content about every niche topic in the world - this underleveraged data coupled with modern advances in AI systems is presenting a unique opportunity to quickly build a new kind of search engine. As a Senior Staff, you will design and build a large-scale system that powers end-to-end search relevance at scale. You'll work across multiple areas of the stack, including query understanding, retrieval, ranking, features, measurement, LLM-based answers, RAG etc, partnering deeply with product, org leads, and other XFN to deliver reliable, high quality systems that can help Reddit Search scale to billions of users.
What You'll Do
  • Contribute to advancing Reddit's Search and Recommendations products by designing AI-driven Search experience prioritizing seamless and delightful user experience.
  • Deeply understand the Reddit search product and drive the vision for the search relevance team.
  • Enhance core search retrieval and ranking, design and implement new search engine features, build and scale search indexes, develop and test new pipeline components. You will also deploy ML models, integrate LLMs, and ensure robust monitoring and smooth product integration throughout the process.
  • Collaborate across disciplines and with ML, Product, Infrastructure, and DS teams at Reddit to find technical solutions to complex challenges.
  • Mentor and guide senior and staff engineers in the team.
  • Influence org-wide technical direction and partner closely with senior leadership to shape the long-term roadmap

Who You Are
  • 10+ years of industry experience with deep expertise in large-scale search and recommendation systems.
  • Proven ability to identify key opportunities, define roadmaps and drive scalable improvement in search relevance.
  • Strong experience in building and deploying large-scale ML models using frameworks such as PyTorch or Tensorflow.
  • Experience working with LLM in production, including evaluation, tuning and deployment.
  • In-depth knowledge and experience working with lexical and semantic retrieval systems.
  • Proficiency in object-oriented programming (Python, Golang).
  • Nice to have: experience building production Agentic AI frameworks.

Benefits:
  • Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits and Income Replacement Programs
  • 401k with Employer Match
  • Global Benefit programs that fit your lifestyle, from workspace to professional development to caregiving support
  • Family Planning Support
  • Gender-Affirming Care
  • Mental Health & Coaching Benefits
  • Flexible Vacation & Paid Volunteer Time Off
  • Generous Paid Parental Leave

#LI-remote, #LI-JS5
Pay Transparency:
This job posting may span more than one career level.
In addition to base salary, this job is eligible to receive equity in the form of restricted stock units, and depending on the position offered, it may also be eligible to receive a commission. Additionally, Reddit offers a wide range of benefits to U.S.-based employees, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) program with employer match, generous time off for vacation, and parental leave. To learn more, please visit https://www.redditinc.com/careers/.
To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base salary ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on function, level, and country location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including, skills, depth of work experience and relevant licenses/credentials, and may vary from the amounts listed below.
The base salary range for this position is:
$266,000-$372,400 USD
In select roles and locations, the interviews will be recorded, transcribed and summarized by artificial intelligence (AI). You will have the opportunity to opt out of recording, transcription and summarization prior to any scheduled interviews.
During the interview, we will collect the following categories of personal information: Identifiers, Professional and Employment-Related Information, Sensory Information (audio/video recording), and any other categories of personal information you choose to share with us. We will use this information to evaluate your application for employment or an independent contractor role, as applicable. We will not sell your personal information or disclose it to any third party for their marketing purposes. We will delete any recording of your interview promptly after making a hiring decision. For more information about how we will handle your personal information, including our retention of it, please refer to our Candidate Privacy Policy for Potential Employees and Contractors.
Reddit is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and is committed to building a workforce representative of the diverse communities we serve. Reddit is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If, due to a disability, you need an accommodation during the interview process, please let your recruiter know.