[Hiring] Senior Software Engineer, Search & AI @Muck Rack

Role Description

Muck Rack is looking for a collaborative, self-motivated Senior Software Engineer, Search & AI to join our growing team. As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll help build and evolve the customer-facing search experiences that help users discover relevant, high-quality content, along with the backend systems that power them. You’ll work across the stack, with a slight emphasis on frontend development, and collaborate closely with engineers, Product, and Design to deliver intuitive search experiences backed by reliable, scalable search and data systems.

What You'll Do

• Own and deliver customer-facing search features and workflows across frontend and backend systems, from technical planning through production.
• Build AI-powered product experiences end to end, from the services behind them to the interfaces that make their output useful and trustworthy.
• Build intuitive, responsive user experiences using Vue while contributing to the Python and Django services that power them.
• Design and improve search, indexing, and retrieval systems that support high-quality content discovery across large volumes of data.
• Build and maintain features and data workflows that leverage technologies such as Elasticsearch, Kafka, Celery, and MySQL.
• Make thoughtful technical decisions and trade-offs that balance customer experience, delivery speed, performance, reliability, and long-term maintainability.
• Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and engineering teammates to shape solutions, clarify requirements, and deliver high-quality customer experiences.
• Troubleshoot complex production issues and drive improvements to the performance, reliability, observability, and maintainability of the systems you work on.
• Participate in an on-call and incident response rotation, helping diagnose and resolve production issues and improve system reliability over time.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience building and maintaining production software.
• Strong experience working across frontend and backend systems and independently delivering features throughout the application stack.
• Proficiency with Python or a similar programming language and experience with Django or a comparable web framework.
• Experience building polished, maintainable user-facing applications with Vue.js or another modern JavaScript framework.
• Experience with Elasticsearch or a comparable search technology, or significant experience working with data-intensive systems.
• Experience making technical trade-offs within complex production systems while balancing immediate delivery needs with long-term quality.
• Experience diagnosing production issues and contributing to the reliability and operational health of the systems you build.
• Experience with TypeScript in a large codebase.
• Experience with design systems or shared component libraries.
• Flexibility to adjust working hours for overlap with teammates in US time zones.

Requirements

• Experience with Kafka or other streaming or event-driven technologies.
• Experience with MySQL, Postgres, or other relational databases.
• Experience with Celery or other asynchronous task-processing systems.
• Experience building search, discovery, indexing, or information-retrieval features.
• Experience improving frontend architecture, performance, or complex customer-facing workflows.
• Experience working with high-traffic SaaS applications or systems that process large volumes of data.
• Experience building customer-facing features backed by LLMs or other AI models.
• Experience judging whether an AI-backed feature is actually working, through evaluation, testing, or user feedback.
• Interest in journalism, news, media, or social media.

Benefits

• Remote Work, Forever: Fully distributed team with a permanent remote setup.
• Home office stipend, phone and internet reimbursement, coworking membership.
• Virtual and in-person team bonding (lunches, events, competitions).
• Transparent & Fair Compensation: Competitive geo-neutral pay in the U.S.
• Annual reviews to ensure equity and market alignment.
• Standardized bonus or commission structure.
• 401(k) with employer contributions.
• Equity opportunities.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance for employees and dependents.
• 100% premium coverage for individuals on high-deductible plans.
• 24/7 Virtual Care and Employee Assistance Program.
• Employer-funded HSA contributions and other pre-tax benefits.
• Quarterly wellness stipend and free Headspace subscription.
• 4+ weeks of PTO, plus paid sick and mental health days.
• 13 paid holidays with the option to swap for personal days.
• Up to 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave.
• Transparent pathways for internal mobility and promotion.
• Bi-annual performance reviews, team workshops, and leadership training.
• Unlimited access to Coursera and O’Reilly.
• 2 additional PTO days annually for learning and development.
• Commitment to equity and valuing diverse perspectives.
• Agile, founder-led company focused on collaboration and innovation.
• Trusted by 3,000+ companies worldwide.