# Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Search & Retrieval Infrastructure

**Company:** [Pinecone](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/pinecone)
**Location:** New York, NY
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $190k – $270k/yr
**Experience:** 6+ years
**Skills:** Go, Rust, C++, Java, Python, Kubernetes, Terraform, Pulumi, Vector Databases, semantic search, hybrid retrieval, RAG, Elasticsearch, opensearch, knowledge graphs
**Posted:** 2026-08-05

> Builds large-scale backend infrastructure for semantic, hybrid, and agentic knowledge retrieval. The role requires deep distributed-systems experience, strong proficiency in a major programming language, and familiarity with vector databases, RAG, cloud-native infrastructure, and high-throughput indexing.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Design and build scalable platform components leveraging advanced retrieval via query planning, semantic and hybrid search, metadata-aware search, and LLM generation.
- Design and build optimized indexing pipelines for structured and unstructured data.
- Build backend services for semantic and hybrid retrieval, knowledge graph construction, and retrieval orchestration.
- Improve retrieval quality through evaluation and observability frameworks.
- Design APIs for internal and external users and agentic consumers.
- Optimize latency, throughput, and cost across large-scale inference and retrieval workloads.
- Drive technical direction for reliability and security.

## Requirements
- Typically **6+ years** of experience shipping production-grade backends for large-scale systems.
- Proven architectural depth designing for high throughput, low latency, and long-term maintainability.
- Experience building high-throughput indexing pipelines for structured and unstructured data.
- Experience or deep theoretical knowledge in semantic search, vector databases, hybrid retrieval strategies, or traditional search engines such as Elasticsearch or OpenSearch.
- Understanding of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), embedding pipelines, hybrid search, query planning, and metadata filtering.
- Expert in at least one major programming language such as Go, Rust, C++, Java, or Python.
- Familiarity with Kubernetes, cloud-native architectures, observability frameworks, and infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform or Pulumi.
- Ability to design clean, intuitive APIs for human developers and autonomous agents.
- Comfortable owning problems in a high-growth environment.

## Nice-to-haves
- Experience building multi-tenant SaaS platforms.
- Experience with retrieval evaluation frameworks.
- Experience with query planning or agentic reasoning loops.

## Compensation and Benefits
- Annual salary range of **$190,000–$270,000**.
- Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and mental health coverage.
- 401(k) plan.
- Equity award.
- Flexible time off.
- Paid parental leave.
- Annual company retreat.
- Work-from-home equipment stipend.

## Similar roles

- [Staff Software Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/7d7e49f7-5548-4c99-82a5-c6ca8019a3b4) - Checkr - Denver, CO - $190k – $264k/yr
- [Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Database Team](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/f63d426d-b264-4de4-aba3-ead37bf4a021) - Pinecone - New York, NY - $190k – $270k/yr
- [Staff Software Engineer, Backend](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/00576e7c-2ab3-4728-a479-eb7c6d31f373) - Creditgenie - New York, NY - $190k – $250k/yr
- [Staff Backend Software Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/2c57d348-2ddb-4da3-9b30-c56075bfb132) - Databricks - New York, NY - $190k – $261k/yr
- [Staff Software Engineer, Metrics and Logging](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/416e2090-376a-499b-b7ea-656daa1b5db1) - Databricks - Mountain View, CA - $190k – $261k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/e9e5b1c2-fc3d-4df1-baec-35c32a0ebf6f
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/e9e5b1c2-fc3d-4df1-baec-35c32a0ebf6f