Staff Backend Engineer, Search

ClickUp; Toronto; Remote; CAD 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading productivity software company in Toronto is seeking a Staff Search Engineer to enhance and optimize search capabilities, a crucial feature of their platform. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in search technologies, particularly OpenSearch/ElasticSearch, and a strong background in designing scalable solutions. This role allows you to directly impact the user experience and contribute to AI initiatives in a dynamic, remote-friendly environment.

Qualifications

• 7 years of experience as a search engineer or in a directly related role.
• Strong expertise in search technologies, particularly OpenSearch / ElasticSearch.
• Experience measuring and optimizing search quality.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement robust search solutions that scale with our rapidly growing user base.
• Improve search relevance, accuracy, and speed to deliver the most relevant results to users.
• Improve real-time indexing pipelines to ensure up-to-date search results.
• Create measurement frameworks to evaluate and improve search quality.

Job description

Overview

ClickUp is revolutionizing the way the world works. As the only all-in-one productivity platform built from day one for true convergence, ClickUp unifies tasks, docs, chat, calendar, enterprise search, and more — supercharged by context-driven AI. Headquartered in San Diego with a rapidly expanding global footprint, we empower over three million teams to break free from silos and reclaim time saved. Join ClickUp, one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies on the planet, and help millions of users transform the way they work. We’re not just building software. We’re shaping the future of work. Come join us in building the future together.

ClickUp is seeking a talented and experienced Staff Search Engineer to join our team and help revolutionize our search capabilities. As a key member of our engineering team, you’ll be responsible for optimizing and enhancing our search functionality, which is a critical feature of our platform and underpins our AI efforts.

Your impact at ClickUp

As a Staff Engineer on the search squad you’ll be responsible for designing, optimizing, and scaling our search infrastructure. You’ll work with OpenSearch / ElasticSearch technologies to ensure users can instantly find exactly what they need across their workspace. Your expertise will directly contribute to making ClickUp the most intuitive and responsive productivity platform available.

Core Responsibilities

• Design and implement robust search solutions that scale with our rapidly growing user base
• Improve search relevance, accuracy, and speed to deliver the most relevant results to users at blazing fast speeds
• Improve our real-time indexing pipelines to ensure search results remain up-to-date
• Create measurement frameworks to evaluate and improve search quality
• Build and enhance vector search capabilities to power next-generation search experiences
• Collaborate with AI backend and product teams to integrate search into new features
• Troubleshoot complex search-related issues at scale
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to engineering best practices

Technical requirements

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science or related field
• 7 years of experience as a search engineer or in a directly related role
• Strong expertise in search technologies, particularly OpenSearch / ElasticSearch
• Experience measuring and optimizing search quality
• Experience with high-volume distributed data processing systems
• Proven ability to optimize query parsing, indexing, and relevance tuning for search systems
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate effectively across teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with vector embeddings and semantic search implementations
• Experience with TypeScript in backend systems
• Track record of architecting search solutions that maintain performance under heavy load
• Experience applying machine learning and NLP to enhance search relevance
• Knowledge of information retrieval concepts and search evaluation metrics

Join Our Mission

At ClickUp we are committed to building the future of productivity software. As our Search Engineer you’ll play a crucial role in shaping the core functionality of our platform and driving our AI initiatives forward. Join us in our mission to make the world more productive!

LI-REMOTE

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Unsure if you meet all the qualifications of this job description but are deeply excited about the role? We hire based on ambition, grit, and a passion for improving the way people work. If you think ClickUp is the company for you, we encourage you to apply!

At ClickUp we assess every candidate based on the potential impact they can have. We hire the best people for the job and support each person’s journey to build their boldest career.

ClickUp is an Equal Opportunity Employer and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.

ClickUp collects and processes personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Please note we are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa for roles outside of engineering and product at this time. Sponsorship for engineering and product roles is not guaranteed but is instead based on the business needs for that specific role at that time. Please reach out to the recruiter with any questions.

ClickUp Talent Acquisition will only initiate contact via an @ email or through our official careers portal on our site. We will never request fees, payments, or sensitive personal information. Please disregard any offers received outside these channels and report them to

Required Experience :

Staff IC

Key Skills

Computer Science, Docker, Kubernetes, Python, VMware, C / C++, Go, System Architecture, gRPC, OS Kernels, Perl, Distributed Systems

Employment Type :

Full-Time

Experience :

years

Vacancy :

1