Principal Software Engineer (Search, AI)

TL;DR

Principal Software Engineer (Search, AI): Providing technical leadership for a large-scale search infrastructure built on Elasticsearch with an accent on scalable distributed systems, index design, relevance tuning, and performance optimization. Focus on shaping search architecture, defining best practices, and ensuring resilience, observability, and high availability on cloud-native platforms.

Location: London

Company

A global leader in information and analytics, hirify.global helps researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society.

What you will do

• Provide technical leadership and architectural direction for large-scale Elasticsearch-based search systems.
• Drive performance optimization and scalability across search indices, queries, and retrieval services.
• Ensure search systems meet security, compliance, and data governance requirements.
• Oversee deployment and scaling strategies on Kubernetes (EKS), ensuring resilience and high availability.
• Champion clean code, SOLID principles, and engineering best practices, mentoring engineers.
• Collaborate with product, data science, and AI teams to deliver advanced search and recommendation features.

Requirements

• Proven experience as a Software Engineering Lead, Tech Lead, or Principal working on search platforms or large-scale distributed systems.
• Strong expertise in Java and the Spring Boot ecosystem.
• Deep hands-on expertise with Elasticsearch, including index design, relevance tuning, and performance optimization.
• Solid background in cloud-native architectures with AWS and Kubernetes (EKS).
• Excellent communication and leadership skills, with a track record of mentoring and guiding teams.
• An inclusive, positive, collaborative mindset and a desire to deliver real business value.

Nice to have

• Experience migrating APIs from REST to GraphQL at scale.
• Knowledge of cost optimization for large Elasticsearch clusters.
• Experience using Python for search tooling, data analysis, or supporting services.
• Experience with semantic or vector-based search systems, including embeddings and hybrid lexical–semantic retrieval approaches.

Culture & Benefits

• Promotes a healthy work/life balance and flexible working hours.
• Offers a comprehensive pension plan.
• Provides home, office, or commuting allowance.
• Generous vacation entitlement and option for sabbatical leave.
• Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, and Family Care leave.
• Access to internal communities, networks, and various employee discounts.