# Search Engineer
**Company:** [Xero](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/xero)
Join Xero's Search team as a Search Engineer to maintain and evolve one of the largest search clusters in the Southern Hemisphere, serving 200,000+ daily active users with 50+ million searchable documents at 99.9% uptime. You'll develop advanced search engineering expertise while contributing to a four-year platform modernization initiative, working alongside senior engineers in a distributed team across Australia and New Zealand. This role offers the opportunity to grow your backend infrastructure and distributed systems knowledge while building scalable search solutions that power enterprise cloud accounting software.
**Role:** Search Engineer
**Seniority:** Mid
**Locations:** AU: Melbourne: (260 Burwood Rd)
**Salary:** 120000–160000 AUD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/xero/9eef7111-d180-4e9e-a3df-f5f36f8b61f8)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/xero/search-engineer
---
## Responsibilities

- Search Infrastructure Maintenance and Operations: Maintain and evolve Xero's large-scale search cluster serving 200,000+ daily active users with 50+ million searchable documents across 400TB of data, ensuring 99.9% uptime and peak performance
- Platform Modernization Development: Actively contribute to the Horizon 2 platform rebuild—a four-year strategic initiative to modernize the search platform architecture, implementing new capabilities and improving system efficiency
- Data Ingestion Pipeline Integration: Design and implement integration points between Xero's Operational Data Layer (ODL) and the next-generation search platform, ensuring data consistency and pipeline reliability
- Search Feature Development: Develop and optimize search capabilities across Xero's accounting platform, including relevance ranking improvements, query performance optimization, and new search functionalities
- Cross-Team Collaboration and Integration: Partner with Mobile, Files, and AI-adjacent teams to explore and implement new search capabilities and integrations, contributing technical insights and solutions
- Code Quality and Technical Excellence: Participate in code reviews, architectural discussions, and technical design processes while mentoring junior engineers and maintaining clean, maintainable codebase standards
- Production Incident Response and Troubleshooting: Diagnose and resolve complex issues in production search systems using monitoring tools, observability data, and systematic debugging techniques
- Cluster Management and Scaling: Monitor cluster health metrics, manage index sharding strategies, optimize node allocation, and ensure horizontal scaling strategies support growing data volumes

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Computer Science or Related Field (Preferred)","description":"Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience in backend/infrastructure engineering"}
- {"name":"Continuous Learning","description":"Demonstrated commitment to developing expertise through technical certifications, side projects, or advanced coursework in search systems or distributed computing"}

### technical

- {"name":"Search Systems Engineering","description":"Demonstrated experience building or maintaining search infrastructure, with understanding of indexing strategies, query optimization, and relevance ranking"}
- {"name":"Backend Development Languages","description":"Proficiency in at least one backend programming language suitable for systems engineering (Java, Go, Rust, Python, or C++)"}
- {"name":"Distributed Systems Concepts","description":"Solid grasp of distributed computing principles including consistency models, fault tolerance, replication, and high-availability patterns"}
- {"name":"Database and Storage Systems","description":"Understanding of how search indices work, including knowledge of inverted indices, sharding strategies, and distributed data storage"}
- {"name":"Monitoring and Observability","description":"Ability to work with logging, metrics, and tracing systems to diagnose issues in production environments and ensure 99.9% uptime"}

### experience

- {"name":"Search Engineering Experience","description":"2-4 years of professional experience working with search systems, including development, maintenance, or operational responsibilities"}
- {"name":"Infrastructure Engineering","description":"Background in maintaining or operating large-scale backend systems, clusters, or production infrastructure"}
- {"name":"Collaborative Engineering Environment","description":"Experience working in distributed or remote-first teams, demonstrating strong asynchronous communication and code review practices"}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Search Engine Architecture","description":"Hands-on experience building, maintaining, or optimizing search systems at scale, including understanding of indexing, query processing, and relevance algorithms"}
- {"name":"Distributed Systems","description":"Strong foundation in designing and working with distributed backend systems, including experience with clustering, replication, and high-availability infrastructure"}
- {"name":"Backend Software Engineering","description":"Proficiency in core software engineering principles including system design, clean code practices, testing strategies, and code maintainability"}
- {"name":"Infrastructure and DevOps Fundamentals","description":"Working knowledge of deployment pipelines, monitoring systems, observability tools, and operational excellence practices in production environments"}
- {"name":"Collaborative Problem Solving","description":"Ability to work effectively in distributed teams through code reviews, design discussions, and asynchronous communication across time zones"}

### preferred

- {"name":"Elasticsearch or Solr Experience","description":"Proven experience with open-source search platforms, particularly Elasticsearch or Apache Solr, including cluster administration and performance tuning"}
- {"name":"Large-Scale Data Processing","description":"Experience working with petabyte-scale data pipelines, data ingestion systems, or stream processing frameworks"}
- {"name":"Operational Data Lake Integration","description":"Knowledge of modern data architectures, ETL pipelines, and integration between search systems and centralized data platforms"}
- {"name":"Cloud Infrastructure","description":"Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and containerized deployments relevant to search and infrastructure engineering"}
- {"name":"Performance Optimization","description":"Track record of improving system performance under high load, including query optimization, latency reduction, and throughput improvements"}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"Kubernetes or Container Orchestration","description":"Likely platform for deploying and managing search cluster infrastructure at scale"}
- {"name":"Monitoring and Observability Stack","description":"Tools for tracking cluster health, query performance, latency, and maintaining 99.9% uptime SLAs"}
- {"name":"Git and Version Control","description":"Standard development workflows with code review processes and collaborative development practices"}

### others

- {"name":"Distributed Systems Architecture","description":"Understanding of sharding, replication, consistency models, and high-availability patterns required for search scale"}
- {"name":"Search Relevance and Information Retrieval","description":"Knowledge of ranking algorithms, query parsing, faceted search, and search UX optimization"}
- {"name":"Performance Profiling and Optimization","description":"Techniques for identifying bottlenecks, reducing query latency, and optimizing throughput in distributed search systems"}

### databases

- {"name":"Elasticsearch Clusters","description":"Distributed search and analytics engine serving as the primary data store for searchable documents"}
- {"name":"Operational Data Layer (ODL)","description":"Xero's centralized data platform providing source data for search indices and enabling unified data integration"}

### languages

- {"name":"Java","description":"Likely primary backend language for search system development and distributed systems engineering at scale"}
- {"name":"Go","description":"Common choice for infrastructure tooling, cluster management, and operational systems"}
- {"name":"Python","description":"Valuable for data pipeline development, operational scripts, and search analytics"}

### frameworks

- {"name":"Elasticsearch","description":"Enterprise search engine and analytics platform built on Apache Lucene for indexing, searching, and analyzing large-scale data"}
- {"name":"Apache Lucene","description":"Core search library powering Elasticsearch, providing full-text search indexing and retrieval capabilities"}
- {"name":"Kafka or Stream Processing","description":"Likely used for high-volume data ingestion pipelines feeding the search platform"}

## Benefits

### benefits

- {"name":"Learning and Development","description":"Access to advanced technical training on search systems, distributed architecture, and cloud infrastructure; mentorship from senior engineers and Principal Architect in a collaborative environment"}
- {"name":"Remote and Flexible Work","description":"Work remotely from Australia or New Zealand or hybrid from Melbourne, Sydney, or Auckland offices; semi-annual team gatherings and optional in-office collaboration days"}
- {"name":"Impactful Scale","description":"Directly influence systems serving 200,000+ daily active users across Xero's platform; solve interesting technical challenges at petabyte scale"}
- {"name":"Career Growth Opportunities","description":"Clear pathway to senior engineering roles through exposure to platform modernization initiatives, leadership opportunities, and technical specialization"}
- {"name":"Health and Wellness","description":"Comprehensive health insurance, mental health support, and wellness programs supporting employee wellbeing"}
- {"name":"Professional Development","description":"Participation in technical conferences, community events, and speaking opportunities to build industry credibility"}
- {"name":"Stock Options or Equity","description":"Employee equity participation programs aligned with Xero's company performance"}
- {"name":"Collaborative Culture","description":"Work with Product Managers, Principal Architects, and cross-functional teams across Mobile, Files, and AI initiatives"}

## Compensation

- **max:** 160000
- **min:** 120000
- **currency:** AUD
- **stockOptions:** true

## Interview process

### steps

- {"name":"Technical Screening Call","description":"Initial 30-minute conversation with a recruiter to understand your background in search engineering, distributed systems experience, and career goals at Xero"}
- {"name":"Search Systems Technical Interview","description":"60-minute technical discussion with a senior search engineer covering distributed systems concepts, search architecture fundamentals, system design thinking, and your approach to solving operational challenges"}
- {"name":"Infrastructure and Production Readiness Assessment","description":"Technical round focused on your operational experience, debugging production issues, monitoring and observability expertise, and understanding of SLAs and reliability engineering"}
- {"name":"Behavioral and Team Fit Interview","description":"Conversation with the Search team lead and/or Product Manager to assess collaboration skills, growth mindset, communication in distributed teams, and alignment with Xero's values"}
- {"name":"Senior Engineer/Architect Discussion","description":"Optional final round with the Principal Architect to discuss larger platform modernization initiatives, architectural thinking, and long-term career development opportunities"}

## Full description
## The role and impact

Join Xero's Search team as a Search Engineer and help maintain and evolve one of the largest search clusters in the Southern Hemisphere. You'll work on infrastructure that powers Xero for 200,000+ daily active users, handling 50+ million searchable documents and 400TB of data at 99.9% uptime.

In this role, you'll grow your search engineering skills while contributing to meaningful projects. You'll work on both search-specific and generalist engineering tasks, collaborate with experienced engineers through code reviews, and gradually take on larger responsibilities as you develop expertise.

## The team and how they connect

You'll be part of a small, tight-knit distributed team across Melbourne, New South Wales, and New Zealand, now part of Xero's Catalyst platform division. The team works collaboratively with a Product Manager, a Principal Architect, and the broader Catalyst Platform team. This is a great environment to learn search engineering at scale whilst working alongside senior engineers and technical leaders.

## What the team is currently working on

* Horizon 2 platform rebuild - Contribute to a four-year search platform modernisation project
* Cluster maintenance and evolution - Help maintain our search infrastructure at 99.9% uptime across massive scale
* Operational Data Layer (ODL) integration - Work on ingestion pipeline integration with the new platform
* Exploring new partnerships - Collaborate on integrations with Mobile, Files, and AI-adjacent search capabilities

## Where and how you can work

Work remotely within Australia or New Zealand or hybrid from one of our offices. The team gathers in Melbourne approximately every six months for in-person collaboration, and there are optional "boost days" for office work when you'd like to connect with colleagues face-to-face.

## What we're looking for

* Search engineering experience - You've built or maintained search systems and are keen to deepen your expertise in this domain
* Solid software engineering fundamentals - You understand core software engineering principles and write clean, maintainable code
* Growth mindset - You're eager to learn from experienced engineers and tackle increasingly complex problems
* Collaboration skills - You work well with others across engineering, product, and infrastructure teams in a distributed environment
* Initiative and ownership - You take on tasks with enthusiasm and aren't afraid to ask questions when you need support

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