Progressive Technology Federal Systems

Role Description PTFS is seeking a Search Backend Engineer with deep expertise in Lucene-based search platforms such as Apache Solr, Elasticsearch, or OpenSearch. This role is designed for engineers who specialize in search and information retrieval, with strong Java backend development experience. - Design, develop and maintain search platforms using SolrCloud - Build and optimize indexing pipelines for high-volume unstructured data - Develop custom query logic, ranking strategies, and relevance tuning - Implement and maintain search APIs and services using Java and Spring Boot - Design and evolve schemas, analyzers, and tokenization strategies - Troubleshoot search quality and performance issues in production environments - Work with distributed search clusters and supporting components - Contribute to monitoring, observability, and reliability of search systems Qualifications - 7+ years of hands-on experience with Java, including Spring and Spring Boot, in the USA - 7+ years of experience using Solr/SolrCloud (Preferred) or Elasticsearch, in the USA - Strong understanding of Apache Lucene fundamentals - Java development experience applied to search and processing structured and unstructured data - Experience building search APIs or services (Solr/Elasticsearch/OpenSearch clients) - Experience with XML parsing, binding and transformation workflows - Strong troubleshooting skills across distributed systems and JVM-based applications - Monitoring experience with tools like Prometheus and Grafana - Experience with testing practices (TDD/BDD, performance testing such as JMeter) - Experience with DevOps tooling (Git/GitLab, Jenkins, Maven, Nexus, Ansible) - Strong Linux experience in production environments Requirements - Must be eligible to obtain a Public Trust clearance - Must be a U.S. Citizen, Green Card holder, or Employment Authorization Document (EAD) holder - No visa sponsorship or C2C arrangements available - Must have resided in the United States for at least three (3) years Education - A Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science Benefits - 15 days paid time off per year - 11 paid holidays per year - Medical, Dental & Vision - 401(k) Plan with matching - Tuition assistance - Disability insurance - Referral Bonuses