Search Backend Engineer (Remote)

About

PTFS is seeking a Search Backend Engineer with deep expertise in Lucene-based search platforms such as Apache Solr, Elasticsearch, or OpenSearch. This role is designed for engineers who specialize in search and information retrieval, with strong Java backend development experience.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain search platforms using SolrCloud
• Build and optimize indexing pipelines for high-volume unstructured data
• Develop custom query logic, ranking strategies, and relevance tuning
• Implement and maintain search APIs and services using Java and Sprin Boot
• Design and evolve schemas, analyzers, and tokenization strategies
• Troubleshoot search quality and performance issues in production environments
• Work with distributed search clusters and supporting components
• Contribute to monitoring, observability, and reliability of search systems

Skills qualifications (Required)

• 7+ years of hands-on experience with Java, including Spring and Spring Boot, in the USA
• 7+ years of experience using Solr/SolrCloud (Preferred) or Elasticsearch, in the USA
• Strong understanding of Apache Lucene fundamentals
• Java development experience applied to search and processing structured and unstructured data
• Experience building search APIs or services (Solr/Elasticsearch/OpenSearch clients)
• Experience with XML parsing, binding and transformation workflows.
• Strong troubleshooting skills across distributed systems and JVM-based applications
• Monitoring experience with tools like Prometheus and Grafana
• Experience with testing practices (TDD/BDD, performance testing such as JMeter)
• Experience with DevOps tooling (Git/GitLab, Jenkins, Maven, Nexus, Ansible)
• Strong Linux experience in production environments

Other requirements

• Must be eligible to obtain a Public Trust clearance
• Must be a U.S. Citizen, Green Card holder, or Employment Authorization Document (EAD) holder
• No visa sponsorship or C2C arrangements available
• Must have resided in the United States for at least three (3) years

Education

• A Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science.

Benefits

• 15 days paid time off per year
• 11 paid holidays per year
• Medical, Dental & Vision
• 401(k) Plan with matching
• Tuition assistance
• Disability insurance
• Referral Bonuses