Senior Backend Engineer - Search & Discovery (all genders)

Vollzeit

Vergütung: EUR 70000 - EUR 85000 - jährlich

About the Position

Join ABOUT YOU as a Senior Backend Engineer for Search & Discovery, focusing on query understanding and semantic vector search.

About the Company

ABOUT YOU is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce companies in Europe. With locations in Hamburg and Berlin, we bring fashion and technology together. Our mission is to rethink online shopping and make it more personal. For this, we need more than just good ideas. We need people who show initiative and question the status quo. We believe in flat hierarchies, direct communication, and pragmatic decisions. There are no long approval processes. We work with dedication and also value enjoying our time together, whether it's during team lunches, after-work drinks, company events, or a quick coffee between meetings.

Responsibilities

• Development of the Search Engine behind ABOUT YOU with a focus on Query Understanding, Entity Resolution, and semantic vector search in Node.js/TypeScript
• Combining OpenSearch relevance, embedding similarity, and behavior-based re-ranking signals to create unified and relevant search results
• Building and evolving search index pipelines for entities, synonyms, and k-NN product vectors, transferring data from BigQuery to OpenSearch
• Integrating LLMs and embedding models like Gemini and Vertex AI under strict latency requirements – including caching and fallback mechanisms
• Ensuring search quality through Golden Lists, regression suites, and continuous A/B experiments
• Co-designing the architecture with our Tech Lead and closely collaborating with Data Analysts, Engineers, and Product Managers

Requirements

• You enjoy uncovering the "why" behind search results and deriving concrete technical improvements from it
• 5+ years of experience in developing scalable, low-latency backend APIs, ideally with Node.js/TypeScript – alternatively, you bring experience with Java, Go, or Kotlin and quickly get up to speed with new technologies
• In-depth practical experience with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, especially with mappings, custom analyzers, percolators, and scoring functions – beyond just using query clients
• Strong algorithmic understanding for ranked data, such as merging and deduplicating results, combining scores, and balancing latency and result quality
• You are interested in connecting backend engineering and machine learning to deploy model scores, embeddings, or LLM features in production systems
• Excellent communication skills in English and a pragmatic, data-driven approach with a strong curiosity for new challenges

Nice to Have

• Basic knowledge in Information Retrieval and NLP, such as tokenization, multilingual search, or frameworks for assessing search relevance
• Experience with vector search, such as k-NN/HNSW indices and SigLIP embeddings, and optimizing the trade-off between recall and latency
• Practical knowledge in LLM engineering, for example, prompt caching, defining timeout budgets, or Datadog LLM observability
• Familiarity with BigQuery, dbt, or Dagster and corresponding data pipelines

We Offer

• Competitive salary
• Opportunity to work in a dynamic and innovative environment
• Collaborative and inclusive workplace culture
• Professional development opportunities

About the Company

ABOUT YOU is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce companies in Europe. With locations in Hamburg and Berlin, we bring fashion and technology together. Our mission is to rethink online shopping and make it more personal. For this, we need more than just good ideas. We need people who show initiative and question the status quo. We believe in flat hierarchies, direct communication, and pragmatic decisions. There are no long approval processes. We work with dedication and also value enjoying our time together, whether it's during team lunches, after-work drinks, company events, or a quick coffee between meetings.

Apply now through our careers page - we will get back to you as soon as possible with feedback!

A place where you can be yourself.

We see it as our responsibility to create an environment where everyone can feel as welcome as they are.

Diverse backgrounds and perspectives make us stronger and shape our culture.

What we stand for internally, we also stand for as a brand: acceptance, inclusion, and a fairer approach to fashion.

Apply now

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