Senior Staff Software Engineer, Indexing & Retrieval Platform

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<div class="p-rich_text_section">Reddit is a community of communities. It’s built on shared interests, passion, and trust, and is home to the most open and authentic conversations on the internet. Every day, Reddit users submit, vote, and comment on the topics they care most about. With 100,000+ active communities and approximately 126 million daily active unique visitors, Reddit is one of the internet’s largest sources of information. For more information, visit <a class="c-link" href="http://www.redditinc.com/" target="_blank" data-stringify-link="http://redditinc.com" data-sk="tooltip_parent">www.redditinc.com</a>.</div>
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</div></div><p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Team</strong></span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The ML Indexing & Retrieval Platform team at Reddit is responsible for building and scaling the core infrastructure that powers machine learning driven recommendations. We design and maintain systems for ML data ingestion, low-latency retrieval services, and end-to-end lifecycle management of data. With a focus on performance, reliability, and scalability, we enable real-time access to high-quality data that supports a wide range of applications, including Content Understanding, Semantic, Lexical retrieval & GenAI applications. </span></p>
<h2><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>How You'll Have Impact</strong></span></h2>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">You’ll lead the development of next-generation ML Indexing & Retrieval systems, owning the full lifecycle from ideation to production and going beyond incremental improvements to reimagine core platform capabilities. As part of a high-impact, cross-functional team, you’ll solve complex technical challenges to build scalable, reliable platforms that empower developers to efficiently ship critical ML features.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Languages:</strong> Go, Java, Python, or any object oriented programming language</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Frameworks: </strong>Flink, Airflow,<strong> </strong>Spark for large scale batch & stream processing </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Databases:</strong> Familiarity with Vector, Lexical & Key-Value Databases </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Tools:</strong> Kubernetes, Docker, AWS, GCP</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What You’ll Do</strong></span></h2>
<ul>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Lead the technical strategy, architecture, and implementation of Reddit’s next-generation ML Indexing & Retrieval engine, integrating capabilities across lexical and vector indexing, low-latency retrieval, and emerging GenAI applications.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Partner closely with product engineers across Content Understanding, Search, Feeds, Ads, Growth, and Safety to deliver high-quality experiences.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Define best practices for observability, reliability, and operational excellence in large-scale distributed systems.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mentor and guide engineers in designing scalable infrastructure and adopting robust DevOps and SRE principles.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Collaborate with infrastructure, and ML teams to ensure the platform evolves to meet the needs of Reddit’s growing user base and diverse content ecosystem.</span></li>
</ul>
<h4><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Who You Might Be:</strong></span></h4>
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<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">10+ years of experience in software engineering, specializing in Indexing and Retrieval systems.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">3+ years in technical leadership, architecting and scaling distributed systems in production environments.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Deep expertise in large-scale data platforms, including batch indexing and stream processing.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Proven experience designing and operating large-scale, low-latency retrieval services.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Expertise in lexical and vector search retrieval technologies, such as Milvus, Vespa, or Elasticsearch. </span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Skilled in designing cloud-native architectures and managing containerized workloads using Kubernetes and AWS/GCP.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Adept at translating complex technical challenges into clear, actionable strategies.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Strong communicator and mentor who leads through collaboration, influence, and technical excellence.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Benefits:</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits and Income Replacement Programs</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">401k with Employer Match</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Global Benefit programs that fit your lifestyle, from workspace to professional development to caregiving support</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Family Planning Support</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Gender-Affirming Care</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mental Health & Coaching Benefits</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12p