Staff Software Engineer, AI Search

The impact you will have:

• Drive the architecture and evolution of the Search product, delivering scalable, low-latency, and high-quality retrieval across massive multimodal datasets.
• Identify and solve challenges in indexing, storage, query execution, and ranking — blending innovations in vector search, keyword search, and hybrid retrieval techniques.
• Partner with infrastructure, product, and research teams to shape APIs and developer experiences that make it easy to build production-grade, AI-powered and search-driven applications.
• Lead end-to-end engineering efforts — from design to production rollout — ensuring high standards for performance, correctness, and reliability.
• Make direct, high-impact contributions to core systems powering search, discovery, and recommendation experiences.
• Champion software engineering excellence and mentor other engineers through design reviews, technical discussions, and collaborative development.
• Contribute to long-term planning and influence Databricks’ technical direction in search, AI infrastructure, and data systems.

What we look for:

• 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in Search technologies (vector, keyword, hybrid) and related domains such as indexing, ranking, retrieval infrastructure, and relevance optimization.
• Familiarity with storage systems, recommendation engines, and database internals.
• Strong foundation in algorithms, data structures, and system design as applied to large-scale retrieval and data systems.
• Proven ability to deliver technically complex, high-impact initiatives that create customer or business value.
• Experience leading architecture for performance-sensitive, large-scale systems.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams in fast-moving environments.
• Strategic and product-oriented mindset with the ability to align technical execution with long-term vision.
• Passion for mentoring, growing engineers, and fostering technical excellence.

Pay Range Transparency

Databricks is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Based on the factors above, Databricks anticipates utilizing the full width of the range. The total compensation package for this position may also include eligibility for annual performance bonus, equity, and the benefits listed above. For more information regarding which range your location is in visit our page here.

Local Pay Range $166,000—$225,000 USD