Senior Software Engineer - Distributed Systems & Search Platforms

We’re partnering with a high‑growth, venture‑backed AI technology company that is building a next‑generation search platform at the core of its product. This is a senior, hands‑on engineering role with real influence over architecture, performance, and long‑term technical direction.

If you enjoy solving hard problems in distributed systems, care deeply about search relevance, scale, and reliability, and want to build foundational platform capabilities rather than incremental features, this role will be a strong fit.

You’ll be part of a small, highly capable engineering group responsible for designing and evolving a mission‑critical search and data access layer used across the product. This is not about tuning dashboards or gluing APIs together, it’s about building and operating core infrastructure that must perform at scale, under real‑world constraints.

The platform is built primarily in Python, with a strong emphasis on clean design, testability, and long‑term maintainability.

Your Background:

• Strong experience building distributed systems in production environments
• Hands‑on experience working on search platforms or search‑heavy systems (e.g. indexing, retrieval, relevance, performance optimisation)
• Deep proficiency in Python for backend or platform development
• A solid understanding of system design trade‑offs (CAP, scalability, resiliency, data modeling)
• Experience owning systems end‑to‑end, from design through production support
• The ability to reason clearly about complex technical problems and communicate solutions effectively

What Sets This Role Apart

• Real technical ownership over a core platform capability
• Greenfield and evolutionary work, not maintenance‑only
• A chance to influence architecture, tooling, and engineering standards
• Smart, pragmatic engineering culture with high technical expectations
• Opportunity to grow alongside a well‑funded, fast‑scaling company with long‑term ambition