Staff Software Engineer, Search Control Plane

Thomson Reuters

. Design, build, and own the control plane that creates, configures, upgrades, promotes, and retires search systems .

Posted 11/5/2026full-timeUnited StatesLead💰 $118,400 - $219,800 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in designing and operating scalable production platforms, with a strong focus on cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, and observability. Proficient in leading cross-functional projects and mentoring engineers while ensuring adherence to architectural principles and security standards.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Cloud Infrastructure ExperienceKubernetes ProficiencyProduction Platform OperationsDistributed Systems FundamentalsSLO Definition and Observability

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

GoJavaPythonInfrastructure As CodeAPI DesignMulti-Tenant Platform SecurityKafkaVespaOpenSearchElasticsearch

Soft Skills

LeadershipMentoringCross-Team CollaborationIncident ResponseEffective Communication

Tools & Technologies

AWSKubernetesCI/CDAI-Assisted Development ToolsDocumentation Tools

Industry Keywords

Capacity PlanningIndex LifecycleRole-Based Access ControlData SovereigntyObservability

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudDistributed SystemsElasticSearchJavaKafkaKubernetesPythonSwitchingGo

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design, build, and own the control plane that creates, configures, upgrades, promotes, and retires search systems
Automate provisioning of Kubernetes workloads, Kafka messaging, ingestion pipelines, and the query and ingest data plane
Provide lifecycle workflows for schema changes, reingest, index switching, and rollback
Build tenant data isolation, enterprise identity, role-based access, and data sovereignty controls
Design configuration data models and persistence layers for system definitions, component registries, index lifecycle state, and audit history
Set platform interface standards with versioned, backward-compatible contracts and documentation
Own infrastructure for Vespa and OpenSearch search indexes, including provisioning, capacity planning, health, backup, restore, and on-call
Set capacity budgets and limits for reindexing and backfills
Own observability and platform SLOs for availability, query latency, ingestion throughput, and document freshness
Own cloud infrastructure as code, CI/CD, delivery improvements, security, cost, and performance planning
Operate the platform through on-call, incident response, and post-mortems
Set architectural principles and design patterns for the control plane and infrastructure
Lead cross-team projects, set priorities, and advise leadership on infrastructure and security decisions
Partner with client teams and the retrieval owner to improve platform adoption and roadmap
Mentor Senior and mid-level engineers and promote effective AI-assisted development
In the first year, deliver an improved self-service control plane, establish end-to-end SLO coverage and capacity plans, and lead a major infrastructure initiative

Requirements

What you’ll need

8+ years of software engineering experience with progression to staff-level scope, including ownership of a functional area and leadership of cross-functional projects
A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience
Experience designing, building, and operating production platform or infrastructure services at scale
Strong distributed systems fundamentals
Experience with Go, Java, Python, or an equivalent language
Hands-on cloud infrastructure experience, AWS preferred
Experience with Kubernetes or another container orchestrator
Experience with infrastructure as code
Production experience operating Vespa, OpenSearch, or Elasticsearch, including capacity planning and index lifecycle
SLO definition, observability, on-call leadership, and learning from incidents
Fluency with AI-assisted development tools
Experience designing APIs consumed by multiple teams, with versioning, access control, and developer experience preferred
Experience with multi-tenant platform security, identity integration, role-based access control, encryption, and customer-managed keys preferred
Experience operating Kafka or another distributed messaging platform in production preferred
Experience building internal developer platforms with strong documentation and ease of adoption preferred
Tracing and observability for non-deterministic or agentic workflows preferred

Benefits

Comp & perks

Flexible hybrid working environment
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
Mental, physical, and financial wellbeing resources
Two paid volunteer days off annually
Health insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
Disability insurance
Life insurance
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 Accounts
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
Annual Bonus based on enterprise and individual performance may be available