Senior Software Engineer — AI Search Architect

Vannevar; United States; Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 215,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Remote friendly with WeWork access

Unlimited PTO

401(k) match

Fully paid parental leave

Job summary

Vannevar is a defense technology company building AI to deter adversaries. The Senior Software Engineer role focuses on search and information retrieval, partnering with ML and product teams to advance a state‑of‑the‑art search system that surfaces mission‑critical information for decision makers.

You will design and evolve the technical strategy for search, push latency and relevance, and collaborate with engineers, designers, and strategists to translate user needs into data‑driven innovations.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of backend software development experience.
• 3+ years in search or information retrieval.
• Experience architecting scalable systems.
• Hands-on with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch and NLP/ML concepts.
• U.S. Person status required.

Responsibilities

• Define technical search strategy across full-text, vectors, LLMs, NLP, and ranking.
• Improve search latency and relevance.
• Collaborate with product, design, and mission teams to translate needs into search innovations.
• Research new technologies to improve index quality and retrieval performance.

Skills

Backend development

Search systems

Information retrieval

NLP

Machine learning

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Leadership & communication

Tools

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Job description

Vannevar is a defense technology company building AI to deter adversaries. The Senior Software Engineer role focuses on search and information retrieval, partnering with ML and product teams to advance a state‑of‑the‑art search system that surfaces mission‑critical information for decision makers.

You will design and evolve the technical strategy for search, push latency and relevance, and collaborate with engineers, designers, and strategists to translate user needs into data‑driven innovations.