Principal Python Engineer – Core Search Platform

Ontrac Solutions•Sunnyvale, CA

About The Position

At Ontrac Solutions, we partner with elite engineering organizations to build systems that operate at planetary scale. Our client, a founding search company, is evolving the foundation of its core search platform — and we are looking for a Principal Python Engineer who does not just use Python… but understands it at its core execution model. This is not a feature role. This is not application engineering. This is infrastructure that shapes user experience at massive scale. The Mandate Design and optimize the Python systems that power: Global indexing pipelines Real-time search services Ranking and relevance models High-QPS distributed APIs ML-integrated search architecture You will operate where performance, scale, and precision intersect. The Environment You’ll Influence You’ll work alongside teams leveraging: Apache Lucene Elasticsearch Apache Solr Apache Kafka Hadoop TensorFlow PyTorch This is distributed systems engineering at scale. Latency matters. Throughput matters. Architecture matters. You don’t just ship code. You design systems that scale. This is high-visibility, high-impact engineering. Through Ontrac Solutions, you’re not just stepping into a contract role. You’re joining a performance-driven engineering ecosystem. We operate with: Enterprise precision Architectural rigor Clear executive alignment Outcome-driven delivery We partner with organizations where technical excellence is not optional — it’s foundational. About Ontrac Solutions Ontrac Solutions partners with enterprise platforms and high-growth organizations to deliver Cloud, AI, and Digital Product Engineering at scale. We operate at the intersection of: Control Clarity Velocity Institutional Trust If you are a Principal engineer who thrives in performance-critical environments and wants to build infrastructure that matters — we should talk.

Requirements

Has 10+ years of Python engineering in production
Understands CPython internals and performance trade-offs
Has optimized systems around GIL, async I/O, multiprocessing
Has built high-throughput services serving millions of users
Has architected distributed systems end-to-end
Can debug performance issues at memory and execution level
Has operated at Staff or Principal level with architectural ownership

Nice To Haves

Built large-scale search platforms
Worked on marketplace or ad-tech systems
Led distributed systems architecture
Contributed to open-source Python libraries
Operated in environments where uptime > 99.9% is mandatory
Experience in relevance engineering, information retrieval theory, or ML-driven search pipelines is highly valued.