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Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Search & Retrieval Infrastructure
PineconeUS Remote · Remote · Senior
$190,000 – $270,000
Listed on Pinecone’s own careers site. You apply with them directly — we never stand between you and the employer.
What this role is
This role involves architecting and building the core retrieval and search infrastructure for an AI knowledge platform, focusing on vector databases, semantic search, and systems that connect data to LLM applications. It suits experienced backend engineers with expertise in distributed systems who understand both traditional and modern retrieval techniques and want to shape infrastructure for AI-native use cases.
Our summary, not Pinecone’s wording. The full posting is on their site.
Skills this role names
- C++
- Elasticsearch
- Go
- Java
- Kubernetes
- Pulumi
- Python
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
- Rust
- Terraform
- Vector Databases
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What they ask for
Required
- 6+ years shipping production-grade backend systems
- Expertise in at least one major programming language (Go, Rust, C++, Java, Python)
- Experience building high-throughput indexing pipelines
- Understanding of semantic search, vector databases, or hybrid retrieval approaches
- Knowledge of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) patterns
- Familiarity with Kubernetes or cloud-native architectures
- Ability to design clean APIs for developers and agents
Nice to have
- Experience building multi-tenant SaaS platforms
- Experience with retrieval evaluation frameworks
- Experience with query planning or agentic reasoning systems
- Knowledge of traditional search engines like Elasticsearch or OpenSearch
- Infrastructure-as-code experience with Terraform or Pulumi