Senior Research Engineer
Own the end-to-end lifecycle of memory features for AI agents. Fine-tune models, implement research, build evaluations, and ship production systems with Engineering.
Senior Software Engineer, Vector Index Research
Research and implement high-performance vector indexing and retrieval algorithms for Milvus and Zilliz Cloud. Requires 3+ years in vector search or HPC, strong C++ or Rust skills, and a research-driven engineering mindset.
175k – 250kRedwood City, CAML EngineeringHybrid3+ YOE
About the role
Responsibilities
- Research, evaluate, and implement new vector indexing and retrieval algorithms for Milvus, Zilliz Cloud, and Vector Lakebase
- Read papers and track emerging work in vector search, ANN algorithms, index structures, quantization, compression, reranking, GPU acceleration, and AI retrieval systems
- Build high-performance vector indexing components, including index building, query paths, vector preprocessing, quantization, compression, memory layout, and CPU/GPU acceleration
- Optimize vector retrieval performance across latency, throughput, recall, memory usage, index build time, and cost efficiency
- Design benchmarks and evaluation frameworks to compare algorithms and implementations under real data scale, real query patterns, and real AI workloads
- Debug and solve complex performance issues across algorithm implementation, CPU/GPU execution, SIMD/vectorization, memory access, concurrency, and I/O
- Turn research prototypes into maintainable, testable, and evolvable production-grade indexing capabilities
- Use AI tools across the research and engineering workflow, including paper analysis, prototype generation, code implementation, testing, benchmarking, documentation, and performance analysis
Requirements
- 3+ years of experience in vector search, ANN algorithms, search systems, high-performance computing, or performance-critical systems
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
- Strong C++ or Rust programming ability and solid engineering fundamentals
- Strong interest in research-driven engineering: reading papers, evaluating tradeoffs, building prototypes, and turning ideas into production systems
Nice-to-Haves
- Experience with vector similarity search, ANN algorithms, index structures, quantization, compression, reranking, or high-performance retrieval systems
- Experience with performance optimization and systematic debugging, especially around CPU/GPU execution, SIMD, memory layout, concurrency, I/O, or large-scale data processing
- Interest in using AI tools to improve research, coding, testing, benchmarking, documentation, and performance analysis
Benefits
- Competitive compensation (cash + equity)
- Regular bonus and equity refresh opportunities
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Paid time off, including vacation, sick leave, and global reset/wellbeing days
- Generous 401(k) and regional retirement plans
Skills
C++RustVector SearchAnn AlgorithmsIndex StructuresQuantizationCompressionGpu AccelerationPerformance OptimizationSimd
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