Lead Software Engineer, Semantic Search OpenSearch

Makeswift, Inc.; Austin (TX); Hybrid; USD 163,000 - 244,000; Full time

Job summary

Makeswift, Inc. is seeking a Lead Software Engineer, Search to architect and scale semantic search across our data platform. You will own the OpenSearch-based hybrid search, integrating vector embeddings and neural search, while guiding the indexing pipelines built on MySQL, Kafka/RabbitMQ, and backing microservices.

The role demands hands-on leadership, deep OpenSearch expertise, and a focus on ultra-low latency, high-availability search at scale within a hybrid Austin-based office environment.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software development experience, with leadership experience
• Hands-on OpenSearch/Elasticsearch clustering at scale
• Experience with semantic and hybrid search incorporating vector embeddings
• Strong backend fundamentals in Go, Java, or Scala (plus PHP familiarity)
• Experience with relational databases (MySQL) and distributed messaging (Kafka/RabbitMQ)
• Familiarity with OpenSearch Neural Search plugin, k-NN, or Learning to Rank (LTR)
• Experience with containerization/orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) in cloud environments

Responsibilities

• Architect semantic search capabilities using OpenSearch, building a robust hybrid (BM25 + vector) solution
• Iterate, benchmark, and fine-tune search relevance and ranking models
• Own data ingestion and indexing pipelines supporting dense vector ingestion and de-duplication
• Provide technical leadership and guide engineering best practices for the Search team
• Ensure ultra-low latency and high availability under massive concurrent traffic, participate in on-call rotation

Skills

OpenSearch/Elasticsearch

Semantic search

Hybrid search

Backend fundamentals

Go/Java/Scala

Data pipelines

Tools

MySQL

Kafka

RabbitMQ

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Makeswift, Inc. is seeking a Lead Software Engineer, Search to architect and scale semantic search across our data platform. You will own the OpenSearch-based hybrid search, integrating vector embeddings and neural search, while guiding the indexing pipelines built on MySQL, Kafka/RabbitMQ, and backing microservices.

The role demands hands-on leadership, deep OpenSearch expertise, and a focus on ultra-low latency, high-availability search at scale within a hybrid Austin-based office environment.