About this opportunity
Cacheflow lists this Lead Software Engineer, Search (Semantic Platform) opportunity in austin, Texas. Review the employer’s description below for duties, qualifications and application requirements.
Job description
Overview
Commerce empowers businesses to innovate, grow, and thrive with an open, AI-driven commerce ecosystem. As the parent company of BigCommerce, Feedonomics, and Makeswift, we connect tools and systems that power growth, unlock data potential, deliver personalized experiences across channels, and adapt to a changing market. We harness AI responsibly to solve problems, accelerate outcomes, and enable teams to grow on their own terms. We seek bold builders, sharp thinkers, and technical trailblazers who shape the future of commerce.
We are looking for a Lead Software Engineer, Search to pioneer the next evolution of our search infrastructure. In this role, you will build, iterate, and scale semantic search via hybrid search on OpenSearch as a core platform capability.
As the technical lead for this initiative, you will architect systems that blend traditional keyword matching with deep semantic understanding. You will own the strategy for integrating vector embeddings, neural search, and dense/sparse hybrid retrieval, directly impacting how users discover data across our ecosystem. If you are a hands-on technical leader who loves OpenSearch, relevancy tuning, and building high-throughput, foundational capabilities, we want you in our Austin hub.
BigCommerce, part of the Commerce brand family, helps merchants increase sales at every growth stage. From startups to large enterprises, we provide the leading e-commerce platform so customers can focus on growing their businesses. We enable our customers to build, innovate, and grow, reshaping the e-commerce industry together.
What You’ll Do
Architect the Future of Search: Lead the design and implementation of semantic search capabilities using OpenSearch to build a robust hybrid search (BM25 + vector) from the ground up
Iterate & Optimize: Continuously evaluate, benchmark, and fine-tune search relevance, ranking models, and k-NN/neural search configurations within OpenSearch
Own the Indexing Pipeline: Maintain, scale, and evolve core data ingestion and indexing pipelines (built on MySQL, Kafka/RabbitMQ, and backend microservices) to support dense vector ingestion and de-duplicated, resilient synchronization
Technical Leadership: Guide the technical roadmap for the Search team, establish engineering best practices, and mentor senior and mid-level engineers through complex architectural decisions
Production Excellence: Ensure the search platform meets ultra-low latency requirements and high-availability SLAs under massive, concurrent traffic loads while participating in the on-call rotation
Who Are You
Experience: 7+ years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record in a technical leadership or staff-level capacity
OpenSearch/Elasticsearch Expertise: Deep hands-on experience building, scaling, and fine-tuning OpenSearch (or Elasticsearch) clusters at scale
Semantic & Hybrid Search: Proven experience implementing semantic search, working with text embeddings, vector databases, and configuring hybrid search scoring models
Strong Backend Fundamentals: High proficiency in typed languages such as Go, Scala, or Java, with experience in languages like PHP
Data Pipelines: Experience with relational databases (MySQL), schema design, and distributed messaging tools (Kafka or RabbitMQ) for heavy data mutation and indexing
Location: Based in or willing to relocate to the Austin, TX area and comfortable working in a hybrid environment
Familiarity with the OpenSearch Neural Search plugin, k-NN search, or Learning to Rank (LTR)
Experience migrating large-scale search infrastructure to OpenSearch semantic implementations
Experience setting up automated search quality measurement frameworks (e.g., NDCG, MRR)
Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) in a cloud environment
Work Where You Thrive: For candidates in the Austin metro area, the position follows a hybrid model with three days per week in the office, balancing focused individual work with collaboration.
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(Pay Transparency Range: $163,000.00 - $244,000.00)
Compensation Transparency
The national base salary range for this role is posted above in this job post. Final compensation will be determined based on factors such as experience, skills, qualifications, and geographic location. We also consider internal equity to ensure fair and consistent pay practices across our teams.
Where applicable, this role may also be eligible for variable compensation (such as bonus or equity), and benefits in accordance with local policies. Details will be shared during the hiring process. We are committed to equitable and transparent pay practices that align to market data, internal equity, and individual contribution.
Inclusion and Belonging
Commerce is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diverse histories, perspectives, and abilities, and we provide an inclusive environment for all employees to contribute, grow, and thrive. If you require accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process, please let us know so we can meet your needs.
Learn more about the Commerce team, culture, and benefits at Commerce Careers.
Protect Yourself Against Hiring Scams: Our Corporate Disclaimer
Commerce has been the subject of fraudulent job offers. Be advised: Commerce does not offer jobs to individuals who do not go through our formal hiring process. Commerce will never:
require payment of recruitment fees from candidates;
request personally identifiable information through unsanctioned websites or applications;
solicit money from you as part of the hiring process or as part of an employment offer;
solicit money to complete visa requirements as part of a job offer.
If you receive unsolicited offers of employment from Commerce, please exercise caution and avoid engagement.
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Worksite address
austin, TX, 78716, US
Who can apply
Review the original listing for work authorization, qualifications and employer requirements.