• Develop/extend/enhance/manage complex web and/or mobile applications in a collaborative environment.

Title: Senior Java Engineer - Search Platform Location: Palo Alto, CA, US Department: Software-Design and Development Requisition ID448602 Work AreaSoftware-Design and Development Career StatusProfessional Employment TypeRegular Full Time Expected Travel0 - 10% Job Description: We help the world run better At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed. This is a hybrid role based out of Palo, Alto. Hybrid is 3 days week onsite, 2 days a week remote. What you'll do: We’re looking for Senior Software Engineers to lead the design and evolution of a state-of-the-art Search Platform that combines traditional information retrieval with modern AI and LLM-driven capabilities. The systems we build span web-scale indexing, hybrid retrieval (keyword + vector), and advanced ranking systems, delivering low-latency results across massive and heterogeneous datasets. You will play a key role in shaping the technical vision for search, driving innovations in relevance, performance, and scalability. This role requires deep technical expertise, strong system design skills, and the ability to influence architecture and execution across teams. You will partner closely with engineering, product, and data science to deliver impactful improvements to search quality and platform capabilities. Value You Deliver: - Architect and build highly scalable, low-latency distributed search systems - Design and optimize large-scale indexing pipelines and retrieval systems - Drive hybrid search architecture (BM25 + vector search + LLM-based reranking) - Lead design and development of backend services and REST APIs using Java and Spring - Build real-time and batch data pipelines using streaming frameworks - Design event-driven architectures leveraging message brokers such as Kafka - Improve search relevance and ranking quality using ML/NLP and LTR techniques - Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks across indexing and query layers - Define search quality metrics, evaluation frameworks, and experimentation strategies - Ensure system reliability, scalability, and fault tolerance using distributed system best practices - Own end-to-end lifecycle of microservices (design, development, deployment, operations) - Implement security best practices (authentication, authorization, data protection) - Lead technical design discussions and influence architectural decisions - Mentor engineers through code reviews, design guidance, and best practices - Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Data Science, and AI teams What you bring: Education & Experience - Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field - 8+ years of experience in backend or distributed systems development - 5+ years of hands-on experience with large-scale data processing or streaming systems Technical Skills Core Programming & System Design - Deep expertise in Java (Java 11/17+) and JVM ecosystem - Expert-level knowledge of Spring Framework (Boot, MVC, Security, Retry) - Strong understanding of concurrency, multi-threading, and performance optimization - Proven experience designing scalable, fault-tolerant distributed systems Search & Information Retrieval - Strong experience with search technologies (Solr / Elasticsearch / OpenSearch / Lucene) - Deep understanding of indexing strategies, query execution, and relevance tuning - Experience with hybrid retrieval (keyword + vector + semantic/LLM reranking) - Hands-on experience with Learning to Rank (LTR), query understanding, and personalization Stream Processing & Distributed Systems - Extensive experience with Apache Beam, Spark, or Storm - Strong understanding of event-driven architectures and streaming pipelines - Knowledge of processing semantics (exactly-once, at-least-once), windowing, and state management Data Storage & Persistence - Strong expertise in NoSQL systems (preferably Cassandra) - Experience with multi-tenant architectures and high-throughput systems - Understanding of consistency models and distributed data design - Familiarity with document stores and schema design Messaging & Event Systems - Production experience with Kafka or similar systems - Understanding of event sourcing, CQRS, and backpressure handling Security & Cloud - Experience with OAuth and service-to-service authentication - Knowledge of encryption (in transit and at rest) and KMS - Familiarity with Kubernetes and containerized environments - Experience with CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, Maven) Testing & Quality - Strong experience with unit, integration, and distributed system testing - Familiarity with JUnit, Mockito, and embedded test frameworks - Understanding of testing strategies for distributed systems Value Competencies - Drives technical vision and architectural decision-making - Balances immediate delivery with long-term platform evolution - Demonstrates strong ownership and accountability - Mentors and uplifts team through technical leadership - Collaborates effectively across engineering, product, and data science - Operates with a startup mindset—speed with scalability - Passion for solving complex search and relevance challenges at scale Meet your team: We are part of the CTO Organization for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP, building a next-generation Search Platform that powers enterprise discovery at global scale. Our team works on cutting-edge challenges across distributed systems, search relevance, and AI-driven retrieval—combining traditional IR techniques with modern LLM-based approaches. We focus on building systems that are scalable, observable, and impactful, while fostering a culture of engineering excellence and innovation. Bring out your best SAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with two hundred million users and more than one hundred thousand employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best. We win with inclusion SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better world. SAP is committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provides accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: Careers@sap.com. For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, age, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability. Compensation Range Transparency: SAP believes the value of pay transparency contributes towards an honest and supportive culture and is a significant step toward demonstrating SAP’s commitment to pay equity. SAP provides the annualized compensation range inclusive of base salary and variable incentive target for the career level applicable to the posted role. The targeted combined range for this position is 148600 - 252600 (USD) USD. The actual amount to be offered to the successful candidate will be within that range, dependent upon the key aspects of each case which may include education, skills, experience, scope of the role, location, etc. as determined through the selection process. Any SAP variable incentive includes a targeted dollar amount and any actual payout amount is dependent on company and personal performance. Please reference this link for a summary of SAP benefits and eligibility requirements: SAP North America Benefits. AI Usage in the Recruitment Process Requisition ID: 448602 | Work Area: Software-Design and Development | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Professional | Employment Type: Regular Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid

• The role involves working on challenging problems in backend application development, algorithms, system design, and serving in production. • You get to work on a cutting edge stack consisting of Java, Spring, Hibernate, Redis, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, and AWS. • Determine operational feasibility by evaluating analysis, problem definition, requirements, solution development and proposed solutions. • Take accountability for the quality, total cost of ownership, maintainability and security of the component developed. • Review code developed by other developers and provide feedback to ensure best practices (e.g., style guidelines, checking code in, accuracy, testability, and efficiency). • Contribute to existing documentation or educational content and adapt content based on product/program updates and user feedback. • Seek out opportunities for innovation that can be shared between multiple teams that have a willingness to experiment as well as the courage to boldly confront problems of a large complexity and scope. • As an early team member, you’ll help shape our company culture, engineering practices, and the product.

About Kestra At Kestra, we’re on a mission to make orchestration and automation simpler for everyone. Our open-source platform helps teams manage complex workflows with confidence, and we’re already making a big impact in businesses around the world. Now, we’re looking for a Full Stack Engineer to help us take things to the next level. In March 2026, we closed a $25M Series A led by RTP Global, with participation from Alven, ISAI, and Axeleo – backed by founders from Datadog, dbt Labs, and Hugging Face. What You’ll Do As a Lead Software Engineer at Kestra, you’ll get to: - Build and improve our core platform backend using Java. - Work on enterprise solutions, crafting products that scale with our customers’ needs. - You oversee engineers as Team Leader. This involves conducting code reviews, unblocking developers, and providing technical mentorship to help junior and senior staff grow. - You act as the translator between technical and non-technical departments. You’ll work with Product Managers to define roadmaps and ensure technical debt is balanced with feature delivery. - You own the quality of the software. This includes overseeing CI/CD pipelines, defining SLOs/SLAs (Service Level Objectives), and leading "Post-Mortems" when systems fail. - You work closely with customers to understand and fix their pain. You’ll be working in an environment where speed and agility are key, and where delivering value to our customers is always the top priority. We embrace modern development tools, including AI assistants and coding agents, and we encourage engineers to leverage them to move faster, explore ideas, and improve productivity. We provide access to leading AI models and tools when needed so you can use them effectively in your daily work. That said, we strongly believe great engineers must fully understand what they build. This means mastering the business context, the architecture, performance considerations, security implications, and quality standards of the code being produced. You should be comfortable reviewing, validating, and improving AI-generated code, and ultimately take ownership of the entire lifecycle from understanding the problem and designing the solution, to implementation, testing, and delivery. AI can accelerate the work, but responsibility, critical thinking, and technical judgment always remain with the engineer. Our Tech Stack - Backend: Java, Micronaut - Frontend: Vue.js, Bootstrap - Datastore: Kafka, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, MySQL - Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform - Cloud: GCP, AWS, Azure - Tools: GitHub for repo management, actions, and issues We work with a variety of modern technologies, and you’ll get the opportunity to explore new tools and approaches as we grow. What We’re Looking For - 10+ years of experience in both backend (Java). - Someone who can lead major architecture decisions and drive key initiatives. - Someone who keeps things simple and straightforward. We are not here to celebrate beautiful complexity. - Strong experience with testing and automation, and familiar with agile development practices. - A love for building great products that solve real problems. - Track record of quickly learning new technologies and concepts. - The ability to work well both independently, remotely and as part of a team. - Excellent communication skills, both written and spoken, in English. Bonus Points If You Have - Contributed to or maintained an open-source project. - Experience with front-end technology (like Vue.js or React), allowing you to develop full-stack features. - Experience with high performance application or Micronaut. - Knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, and public cloud services (AWS, GCP, Azure). - Familiarity with relational and NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL). - Experience working with high-performance, distributed systems. Perks & Benefits - Work from anywhere: We’re a remote-first company, so you can work from wherever feels like home. Plus, you’ll have access to coworking spaces worldwide if you ever need a change of scenery. - Health coverage: From medical support, dental, and vision, we've got you covered. - Home office setup on us: We’ll provide all the equipment you need to work comfortably. Our Hiring Process We aim to move quickly (2-3 weeks), but we can adjust the timeline if needed. - Intro call with the hiring manager (30 min) - Technical test (2 hour, homework done in async) - Team chat with two of your future colleagues (30 min) - Final discussion with one of our co-founders (30 min) We’re here to make the process smooth and transparent for you. Why Kestra? At Kestra, we’re passionate about solving real-world challenges through orchestration and automation. We move fast, we learn constantly, and we’re always looking for ways to improve. If you’re excited by the idea of building something meaningful and being part of a dynamic team, we’d love to hear from you!