Senior Software Engineer, Semantic Search
Listed on 2025-12-01
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IT/Tech
AI Engineer, Machine Learning/ ML Engineer, Data Scientist
Senior Software Engineer, Semantic Search
New York, NY
About the Role
The Search team at The New York Times is responsible for helping readers find journalism and is transforming search into an experience that enables exploration of our content. You will collaborate with product, design, data, and editorial partners to harness AI advancements and help transform millions of queries into opportunities for discovery. Reports to the Engineering Manager of Search & Personalization.
Responsibilities
- Lead the development and optimization of semantic search algorithms and systems using technologies such as Elastic/Open Search/Solr.
- Apply machine learning techniques, including classification and ranking models, to fine-tune search relevance.
- Build scalable and resilient search infrastructure with Kubernetes and Kafka.
- Explore and integrate Retrieval-Augmented Generation and Large Language Models into search experiences.
- 5+ years of relevant experience in search engineering, information retrieval, or related field.
- 3+ years experience with Elastic, Open Search, Vespa, Solr or other open source search engines.
- 3+ years of experience programming backend applications using Java, Go, or Clojure.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with Kafka/Pub Sub for distributed systems and event-based architectures.
- Experience with Kubernetes for deploying and managing search infrastructure.
Additional Details
This role may require limited on-call hours. An on-call schedule will be determined after you join, considering team size and other variables.
Compensation
The annual base pay range for this role is between $140,000 - $155,000 USD.
About The New York Times
The New York Times Company is committed to independent, reliable, quality journalism and embraces a diverse workforce. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate on protected characteristics. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply.
Legal and Compliance
We provide reasonable accommodations as required by law. For accommodation requests, please email reasonab The NYT will consider qualified applicants including those with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable fair-chance laws. For privacy practices for job applicants, please review our information on the NYT careers site.
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