Staff Software Engineer, Search Retrieval Platform

Thomson Reuters

. Build platform capabilities that provide high-quality, customizable search to product teams, research teams, and AI agents .

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 building scalable search and retrieval platforms, with a strong focus on API design, operational rigor, and AI-assisted development. Proven ability to translate customer needs into effective platform capabilities while leading cross-functional teams and mentoring engineers.

Highest-signal resume keywords

8+ Years Software Engineering ExperienceProficiency In Python, Java, Or GoExperience Building Search Or Retrieval PlatformsOperational Rigor: SLOs And ObservabilityProduction Experience With Vespa, OpenSearch, Or Elasticsearch

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

API DesignSearch ServicesDistributed Systems FundamentalsHybrid RetrievalRanking PipelinesEmbedding ModelsContent IngestionIndexingSearch EvaluationMulti-Tenant Authentication

Soft Skills

Cross-Functional LeadershipMentoringCollaborationProblem-SolvingCommunication

Tools & Technologies

VespaOpenSearchElasticsearchAI-Assisted Development Tools

Industry Keywords

Data-Intensive PlatformsRetrieval SecurityZero-Downtime Index ChangesLLM-As-JudgeAgentic Retrieval Patterns

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Distributed SystemsElasticSearchJavaPythonGo

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Build platform capabilities that provide high-quality, customizable search to product teams, research teams, and AI agents
Translate customer and product needs into reusable platform capabilities
Design retrieval APIs and search services for end users, AI agents, and internal systems
Develop pluggable components for chunking, enrichment, embedding, ranking, and custom models
Own content ingestion and indexing, including streaming pipelines, search engine configuration, and zero-downtime index changes
Partner with Research Engineering and Applied Science to productionize embedding models, hybrid retrieval, re-ranking, and agentic patterns
Work with product and client teams to prioritize the roadmap and improve adoption
Build offline evaluation, search grading, LLM-as-judge scoring, and online experiments into the platform
Own retrieval security, including multi-tenant data isolation, query-time entitlements, and protective telemetry
Own SLOs, observability, tracing, and on-call for retrieval systems; drive improvements from incident reviews
Set architectural direction and design patterns across retrieval, search services, and APIs
Lead cross-team initiatives and make platform trade-offs
Mentor Senior and mid-level engineers and help teams use AI-assisted development effectively
Deliver customizable retrieval capabilities, establish evaluation coverage and runbooks, and move research innovations into supported platform capabilities

Requirements

What you’ll need

8+ years of software engineering experience with progression to staff-level scope, including ownership of a functional area and cross-functional leadership
A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience
Experience building search, retrieval, or data-intensive platforms at scale
Strong distributed systems fundamentals
Proficiency in a language such as Python, Java, or Go
Track record translating customer needs into platform capabilities across product, engineering, and science
Experience designing APIs and services consumed by multiple teams, including contracts, versioning, and developer experience
Operational rigor: SLOs, observability, on-call ownership, and learning from incidents
Fluency with AI-assisted development tools
Production experience with Vespa, OpenSearch, or Elasticsearch preferred
Experience with hybrid dense and sparse retrieval, ranking, and embedding pipelines preferred
Experience building tools or APIs for AI agents, including agentic retrieval patterns and protocols such as MCP preferred
Search evaluation experience, including relevance metrics, LLM-as-judge, and online experimentation preferred
Multi-tenant authentication, authorization, and entitlements preferred
Experience operationalizing ML models in production preferred

Benefits

Comp & perks

Flexible hybrid working environment for office-based roles
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 and ESG initiative opportunities
Health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance programs
Competitive 401(k) plan with company match
Sick and safe paid time off
Paid holidays, including two company mental health days off
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
Annual Bonus based on enterprise and individual performance