Senior Software Engineer - Search & Vector Database Infrastructure

ByteDance; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 218,000 - 480,000; Full time

Job summary

ByteDance is seeking engineers to advance our search and vector engine platforms, focusing on high-performance retrieval, scalable storage, and cloud-native architectures. You will work across Elasticsearch/OpenSearch and Milvus to support hybrid and multi-vector search for large-scale data workloads.

You will collaborate with a global team to push the boundaries of AI-driven search, contribute to open-source ecosystems, and deliver enterprise-grade cloud search services through Volcano Engine.

Qualifications

• B.S. in CS/AI or related field.
• Proficient in C++, Go, Java or Python.
• Experience with search engines, databases, or distributed systems.
• Hands-on with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch or Milvus in production or development.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems and performance optimization.

Responsibilities

• Develop and evolve Elasticsearch/OpenSearch and Milvus products with high performance and scalability.
• Implement full-text and vector search, including hybrid and multi-vector retrieval.
• Optimize vector indexing and distributed retrieval (HNSW, IVF, DiskANN, RaBitQ).
• Explore cloud-native vector lakebase architectures for scalable search over data lakes.

Skills

C++

Golang

Java

Python

Search engines

Distributed systems

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Milvus

Education

B.S. in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Milvus

Lucene

Job description

Responsibilities

About the Team: The Search team is dedicated to building a fully managed, one-stop platform for information retrieval and analytics. Deeply compatible with Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, and Milvus, the platform serves four core scenarios—GenAI applications, search, security, and observability—and provides comprehensive capabilities across full-text search, vector search, geospatial search, and hybrid search. We are also building next-generation Agentic Search products, including RAG, AI-powered search, and multimodal retrieval, continuously pushing the boundaries of intelligent search technology.

We are deeply involved in the open-source ecosystem and have contributed hundreds of PRs across the OpenSearch, Elasticsearch, Lucene, and Milvus communities. Several members of our team hold key leadership roles in these communities, including Governing Board Member, Technical Steering Committee Member, PMC Member, and Maintainer, helping shape the evolution of the broader search and database ecosystem through sustained technical contributions.

On the business side, we not only provide reliable infrastructure for some of ByteDance’s largest-scale vector and full-text hybrid search workloads, but also deliver enterprise-grade cloud search services to external customers through Volcano Engine, helping businesses unlock growth through data. We embrace a pragmatic yet ambitious engineering culture: while continuously publishing innovative research at top-tier conferences such as VLDB and ICDE, we remain strongly focused on real-world impact and commercial adoption, building a comprehensive product portfolio that serves a wide range of search and AI use cases.

Our team brings together leading database researchers and exceptional engineers from around the world. We are looking for talented individuals with expertise in search or vector database engine development, distributed systems architecture, or AI model innovation to join us. Together, we will explore uncharted technical territory, define the data foundation for the AI era, and empower both ByteDance and enterprises across industries to achieve AI-driven transformation.

• Develop and evolve our Elasticsearch/OpenSearch and Milvus products, building high-performance and scalable search and vector retrieval capabilities.
• Develop high-performance full-text and vector search, including hybrid search, filtered search, multi-vector search, and large-scale ANN retrieval.
• Optimize vector indexing and distributed retrieval across HNSW, IVF, DiskANN, RaBitQ, storage, caching, and I/O.
• Explore cloud-native Vector Lakebase architectures for scalable search over data lakes and object storage.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• B.S in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or a related field.
• Strong software engineering skills in C++, Golang, Java, or Python.
• Experience with search engines, databases, storage systems, or distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch or Milvus in production or system development.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems and performance optimization.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep experience with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, Lucene, Milvus/Knowhere, or similar systems.
• Strong knowledge of full-text search and (multi)-vector indexing, including HNSW, IVF, DiskANN, or related ANN algorithms.
• 5 years experience optimizing billion-scale or larger vector retrieval for latency, throughput, recall, and cost.
• 5 years experience with cloud-native storage, compute-storage separation, object storage, or lakehouse/lakebase architectures.

About Us

Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.

Why Join ByteDance

Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.

As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.

Diversity & Inclusion

ByteDance is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.

Reasonable Accommodation

ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $218400 - $480000 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates

• Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
• Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
• Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems;
• Exercising sound judgment.