Staff Software Engineer - Backend, Search

The Company

PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. 

We operate a global, two-sided network at scale that connects hundreds of millions of merchants and consumers. We help merchants and consumers connect, transact, and complete payments, whether they are online or in person. PayPal is more than a connection to third-party payment networks. We provide proprietary payment solutions accepted by merchants that enable the completion of payments on our platform on behalf of our customers.

We offer our customers the flexibility to use their accounts to purchase and receive payments for goods and services, as well as the ability to transfer and withdraw funds. We enable consumers to exchange funds more safely with merchants using a variety of funding sources, which may include a bank account, a PayPal or Venmo account balance, PayPal and Venmo branded credit products, a credit card, a debit card, certain cryptocurrencies, or other stored value products such as gift cards, and eligible credit card rewards.  Our PayPal, Venmo, and Xoom products also make it safer and simpler for friends and family to transfer funds to each other. We offer merchants an end-to-end payments solution that provides authorization and settlement capabilities, as well as instant access to funds and payouts. We also help merchants connect with their customers, process exchanges and returns, and manage risk. We enable consumers to engage in cross-border shopping and merchants to extend their global reach while reducing the complexity and friction involved in enabling cross-border trade. 

Our beliefs are the foundation for how we conduct business every day.  We live each day guided by our core values of Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration, and Wellness. Together, our values ensure that we work together as one global team with our customers at the center of everything we do – and they push us to ensure we take care of ourselves, each other, and our communities.

Job Summary:

Join PayPal’s Consumer Product Catalog and Search team and help build the next generation of product discovery for millions of global shoppers. We own the backend and data infrastructure that powers search, recommendations, and catalog knowledge at global scale.


As a Staff Backend Engineer, you’ll contribute to key components of the product search stack - including ingestion, indexing, and query-time services that deliver fast and relevant search results. You’ll collaborate closely with applied ML engineers and catalog data teams to enable intelligent, contextual, and scalable search capabilities.

We’re looking for motivated and collaborative engineers who enjoy solving complex problems in large-scale search systems. You will work on challenges such as query and document understanding, product entity modeling, taxonomy structuring, retrieval and ranking algorithms, and search quality evaluation. The ideal candidate has strong backend and data system experience, enjoys working across the full engineering lifecycle, and is eager to contribute to modern AI-powered search solutions.

Job Description:

What You’ll Do 

• Enhance and evolve high-performance search backend systems, including query processing, document indexing, retrieval and ranking, ElasticSearch clusters, and scalable APIs. 

• Lead and participate in initiatives to modernize traditional keyword search by incorporating query intent understanding, semantic and vector-based retrieval and integrating LLM-driven components. 

• Build scalable batch and streaming data pipelines to enrich product catalog data and search index. 

• Optimize latency, reliability and observability of search endpoints. 

• Evaluate search performance using offline metrics and live A/B experiments, driving continuous improvement. 

• Drive architectural decisions and mentor engineers through design reviews and code reviews. 

• Uphold engineering best practices, including performance monitoring, documentation, and operational support. 

• Stay current with the latest research and innovations in recommendation systems and search-related ML technologies, translating them into scalable production solutions. 

What We’re Looking For 

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, or related field. 

• 5+ years of industry experience designing, building, and deploying large-scale distributed backend systems with a focus on scalability, availability, and fault tolerance. 

• Hands-on experience with big data technologies such as Apache Beam, Pub/Sub, and Redis. 

• Strong programming skills in JavaScript/Node.js, Python; familiarity with Scala or Golang is a plus. 

• Experience with search platforms (e.g., ElasticSearch), as well as SQL and NoSQL databases. 

• Experience with API design and development using GraphQL and REST. 

• Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure (e.g., GCP, AWS), Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD, observability tooling. 

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across teams and contribute to a high-performing engineering culture. 

Preferred Qualification:

• Experience in search or ML-related fields such as semantic or vector-based retrieval, NLP, or recommendation systems. 

• Exposure to deep learning architectures, LLM integration, fine-tuning, or ML model deployment. 

• Familiarity with ML system design, including model lifecycle management and experimentation pipelines. 

*We know the confidence gap and imposter syndrome can get in the way of meeting spectacular candidates. Please don't hesitate to apply.

PayPal is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices.

Actual compensation is based on various factors including but not limited to work location, and relevant skills and experience.

The total compensation for this position may include an annual performance bonus (or other incentive compensation, as applicable), equity, and medical, dental, vision, and other benefits.  For more information, visit https://www.paypalbenefits.com.

The U.S. national annual pay range for this role is $196,500 to $291,500

Subsidiary:

Honey

Travel Percent:

0

For the majority of employees, PayPal's balanced hybrid work model offers 3 days in the office for effective in-person collaboration and 2 days at your choice of either the PayPal office or your home workspace, ensuring that you equally have the benefits and conveniences of both locations.

Our Benefits:

At PayPal, we’re committed to building an equitable and inclusive global economy. And we can’t do this without our most important asset—you. That’s why we offer benefits to help you thrive in every stage of life. We champion your financial, physical, and mental health by offering valuable benefits and resources to help you care for the whole you.

We have great benefits including a flexible work environment, employee shares options, health and life insurance and more. To learn more about our benefits please visit https://www.paypalbenefits.com.

Who We Are:

Click Here to learn more about our culture and community.

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion 

PayPal provides equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.  In addition, PayPal will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.  If you are unable to submit an application because of incompatible assistive technology or a disability, please contact us at talentaccommodations@paypal.com.

Belonging at PayPal: 

Our employees are central to advancing our mission, and we strive to create an environment where everyone can do their best work with a sense of purpose and belonging. Belonging at PayPal means creating a workplace with a sense of acceptance and security where all employees feel included and valued. We are proud to have a diverse workforce reflective of the merchants, consumers, and communities that we serve, and we continue to take tangible actions to cultivate inclusivity and belonging at PayPal.

Any general requests for consideration of your skills, please Join our Talent Community.

We know the confidence gap and imposter syndrome can get in the way of meeting spectacular candidates. Please don’t hesitate to apply.

Notice to Applicants and Employees who reside within New York City. Click here to view the notice.