Senior Staff Back-end Engineer - Search

Posted:
9/23/2024, 4:55:42 AM

Location(s):
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada ⋅ Ontario, Canada

Experience Level(s):
Senior

Field(s):
AI & Machine Learning ⋅ Software Engineering

Workplace Type:
Hybrid

Pay:
$108/hr or $224,640 total comp

About Faire

Faire is an online wholesale marketplace built on the belief that the future is local — independent retailers around the globe are doing more revenue than Walmart and Amazon combined, but individually, they are small compared to these massive entities. At Faire, we're using the power of tech, data, and machine learning to connect this thriving community of entrepreneurs across the globe. Picture your favorite boutique in town — we help them discover the best products from around the world to sell in their stores. With the right tools and insights, we believe that we can level the playing field so that small businesses everywhere can compete with these big box and e-commerce giants.

By supporting the growth of independent businesses, Faire is driving positive economic impact in local communities, globally. We’re looking for smart, resourceful and passionate people to join us as we power the shop local movement. If you believe in community, come join ours.

About this role

Faire is using machine learning to change wholesale and help local retailers compete with Amazon and big box stores. Our experienced team of engineers and data scientists are developing solutions related to discovery, ranking, search, and recommendations - all with the goal of helping local retail thrive.

Our Engineering team in collaboration with the Data team owns a wide variety of machine learning systems that power the marketplace. We care about good engineering practice and love to write software that is secure, tested, easy to maintain, and can scale to millions of users. We build minimum viable products, deploy to production multiple times per day, A/B test customer-facing changes, listen to the data, and iterate.

As a leading technical member of the Search Back-end Infra team, this role will be responsible for developing next generation Search at Faire, unlocking new search retrieval and ranking applications while meeting industry benchmarks for the latency of our search experience. 

You’re excited about this role because…

  • You’ll be able to work on cutting-edge search query and understanding problems combining a wide variety of data about our retailers, brands and products
  • You’ll develop an infrastructure that support state-of-the-art search algorithms, while enhancing search performance and relevance.
  • You’ll optimize existing search infrastructure for efficiency, speed, and accuracy.
  • You’ll build strong cross-functional partnerships with Data Scientists, Analysts, Product Managers, Engineers, Data Platform and Machine Learning Engineers to understand data needs and deliver on those needs
  • You want to leverage machine learning to help local retailers and independent brands succeed
  • You want to be a foundational team member of a fast growing company
  • You like to solve challenging problems related to a two-sided marketplace

Qualifications

  • 5 + years of industry experience with search/query processing for product development
    • Experience with traditional, semantic, and hybrid search frameworks (e.g. Elasticsearch, Lucene, Solr, FAISS)
    • Experience using machine learning systems for search
    • Experience with search indexing, ranking, retrieval systemsExperience with optimize search latency
  • Experience with highly available/fault-tolerant, replicated data storage systems, large-scale data processing systems, or enterprise/cloud storage systems
  • 8+ years of experience building and managing distributed systems. Sound understanding of distributed system fundamentals
  • Strong programming skills, including experience with the following
    • Kotlin, Java 16
    • JUnit, Hibernate, Guice, Jersey
    • HTTP, JSON, and Protocol Buffers
    • MySQL
  • Strong communication skills and the ability to work with others in a closely collaborative team environment

Salary Range

Canada: the pay range for this role is $199,000-$274,000 per year. 

This role will also be eligible for equity and benefits. Actual base pay will be determined based on permissible factors such as transferable skills, work experience, market demands, and primary work location. The base pay range provided is subject to change and may be modified in the future.

This role will be in-office on a hybrid schedule - Faire employees will be expected to go into the office 2 days per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, effective the week of January 13, 2025. Additionally, in-office roles will have the flexibility to work remotely up to 4 weeks per year.

Applications for this position will be accepted for a minimum of 30 days from the posting date.

Why you’ll love working at Faire

  • We are entrepreneurs: Faire is being built for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. We believe entrepreneurship is a calling and our mission is to empower entrepreneurs to chase their dreams. Every member of our team is taking part in the founding process.
  • We are using technology and data to level the playing field: We are leveraging the power of product innovation and machine learning to connect brands and boutiques from all over the world, building a growing community of more than 350,000 small business owners.
  • We build products our customers love: Everything we do is ultimately in the service of helping our customers grow their business because our goal is to grow the pie - not steal a piece from it. Running a small business is hard work, but using Faire makes it easy.
  • We are curious and resourceful: Inquisitive by default, we explore every possibility, test every assumption, and develop creative solutions to the challenges at hand. We lead with curiosity and data in our decision making, and reason from a first principles mentality.

Faire was founded in 2017 by a team of early product and engineering leads from Square. We’re backed by some of the top investors in retail and tech including: Y Combinator, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Forerunner Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, and DST Global. We have headquarters in San Francisco and Kitchener-Waterloo, and a global employee presence across offices in Toronto, London, and New York. To learn more about Faire and our customers, you can read more on our blog.

Faire provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Faire is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. To request reasonable accommodation, please fill out our Accommodation Request Form (https://bit.ly/faire-form)

Faire

Website: https://www.faire.com/

Headquarter Location: San Francisco, California, United States

Employee Count: 1001-5000

Year Founded: 2017

IPO Status: Private

Last Funding Type: Corporate Round

Industries: E-Commerce ⋅ Marketplace ⋅ Retail ⋅ Retail Technology ⋅ Wholesale