Staff Software Engineer - Search & Discovery

Quizlet • San Francisco, CA

13d • Hybrid

About The Position

This position is for a Staff Software Engineer who brings expertise in reliability, performance, scalability, and software engineering best practices. You will leverage your experience to help solve some of our hardest problems, model best practices, and drive learning and improvement across engineering teams while contributing to broader software development initiatives. You will collaborate with product and platform teams to build robust, scalable, and high-performing systems that support our products and services.Our colocation work model supports employees both remotely and onsite each week. Employees are required to be in the office on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and as needed by their manager or the company. This working environment facilitates collaboration, increases work efficiency, and enhances employee growth. In this role, you will Drive the evolution of our systems by identifying areas for improvement, setting technical direction, and leading architectural decisions to align with business objectives Work closely with engineering, product, and infrastructure teams to build robust, scalable applications Act as a technical mentor by guiding engineers in system design, best practices, and career growth, while fostering a culture of collaboration and learning Lead by example in writing clean, efficient, and well-documented code Shape the strategy for our search infrastructure, driving innovations in indexing, query performance, and scalability to support business needs Facilitate knowledge-sharing sessions, tech talks, and code reviews to elevate engineering excellence

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, with a track record of delivering reliable and scalable systems
• Deep expertise in distributed systems and data-intensive architectures, with strong fundamentals in system design, performance optimization, and debugging at scale
• Proficiency in modern backend languages (e.g., Go, PHP, Python) and experience building robust APIs and server-side logic
• Strong knowledge of relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and experience with schema design, indexing, and query performance tuning
• Interest and experience in search infrastructure, you’re excited to design, scale, and operate the systems that power search and discovery for millions of users. You have (or are eager to build) expertise in technologies such as Elasticsearch or Solr/ OpenSearch, and understand concepts like indexing strategies, query optimization, sharding, replication, and caching. You approach search infrastructure with a performance mindset—comfortable with load testing, benchmarking, and failure simulations to ensure scalability and reliability.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to explain complex concepts clearly

Nice To Haves

• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Terraform, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions, or similar tooling
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (Google Cloud, AWS, etc.) and modern DevOps practices
• Experience working with vector-based search applications
• Experience building or integrating Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications
• Understanding of mobile app architecture or experience optimizing APIs for mobile clients

Responsibilities

• Drive the evolution of our systems by identifying areas for improvement, setting technical direction, and leading architectural decisions to align with business objectives
• Work closely with engineering, product, and infrastructure teams to build robust, scalable applications
• Act as a technical mentor by guiding engineers in system design, best practices, and career growth, while fostering a culture of collaboration and learning
• Lead by example in writing clean, efficient, and well-documented code
• Shape the strategy for our search infrastructure, driving innovations in indexing, query performance, and scalability to support business needs
• Facilitate knowledge-sharing sessions, tech talks, and code reviews to elevate engineering excellence

Benefits

• Collaborate with your manager and team to create a healthy work-life balance
• 20 vacation days that we expect you to take!
• Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance (100% employee and 75% dependent PPO, Dental, VSP Choice)
• Employer-sponsored 401(k) plan with company match
• Access to LinkedIn Learning and other resources to support professional growth
• Paid Family Leave, FSA, HSA, Commuter benefits, and Wellness benefits

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 251-500 employees