Zocdoc
Healthcare
StaffSoftwareEngineer,Search
Neural analysis suggests this role is
optimal for Lead candidates.
“Staff Software Engineer, Search at Zocdoc. Skills: Backend services, APIs, Data infrastructure, Search platform, Vector search, Cross-encoder ranking, ML model serving, Embeddings, LLM-driven flows. Architecting and building core backend services, APIs, and data infrastructure that power Zocdoc’s next-generation search platform. Redesigning how provider, availability, and content data is ingested and flows through indexing pipelines into search and ML systems”
What You'll Achieve.
Deliver personalized, agentic flows that guide patients to care with unprecedented clarity and ease; Set the technical bar for backend engineering excellence; Shape the strategy of Zocdoc Search; Unlock a new generation of intelligent, scalable, and patient-centered search infrastructure; Improve performance, reliability, and data freshness across the entire search stack
Industry & Context.
Solving important, complex problems; Solving ambiguous infrastructure and architectural challenges
What They're Looking For.
Must Have
Deep hands-on expertise with C# /. NET or comparable backend frameworks, with a focus on performance optimization, concurrency, and service-oriented architecture, Significant experience designing and operating large-scale data pipelines, ingestion systems, or stream-processing workflows, Experience with AWS services and cloud-native infrastructure patterns — ECS, Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS/SNS, Kinesis, OpenSearch, S3, and similar, Familiarity with search technologies, vector databases, embedding models, and ML model serving, with a understanding of how to operate these at production scale, Communication skills that align engineering, product, data science, and infrastructure stakeholders around shared goals, A passion for mentoring engineers, setting engineering best practices, and raising the overall technical quality bar, Experience designing systems for high availability, fault tolerance, and graceful degradation in latency-sensitive environments
Nice to Have
Kubernetes a plus
What You'll Do.
Architecting and building core backend services
and data infrastructure that power Zocdoc’s next-generation search platform
Redesigning how provider
and content data is ingested and flows through indexing pipelines into search and ML systems
Designing and optimizing low-latency query paths across our tier-1 search service
vector search infrastructure
and cross-encoder ranking systems
Integrating ML model serving
and ranking signals into production backend services through scalable
Driving architectural direction and setting engineering standards across the Search Services organization through design docs
and high-signal code reviews
Mentoring engineers on backend best practices
distributed systems design
and technical decision-making
Building robust observability into backend services—measuring
and improving performance
and data freshness across the entire search stack
How You'll Work.
Team & Collaboration
Collaborates effectively with product, data science, and infrastructure partners; Align engineering, product, data science, and infrastructure stakeholders around shared goals
Communication Scope
Excellent communicator; Align engineering, product, data science, and infrastructure stakeholders around shared goals
Full Job Description
Our Mission Healthcare should work for patients, but it doesn’ t. In their time of need, they call down outdated insurance directories. Then wait on hold. Then wait weeks for the privilege of a visit. Then wait in a room solely designed for waiting. Then wait for a surprise bill. In any other consumer industry, the companies delivering such a poor customer experience would not survive. But in healthcare, patients lack market power. Which means they are expected to accept the unacceptable. Zocdoc’s mission is to give power to the patient. To do that, we’ve built the leading healthcare marketplace that makes it easy to find and book in-person or virtual care in all 50 states, across +200 specialties and +12k insurance plans. By giving patients the ability to see and choose, we give them power. In doing so, we can make healthcare work like every other consumer sector, where businesses compete for customers, not the other way around. In time, this will drive quality up and prices down. We’re 18 years old and the leader in our space, but we are still just getting started. If you like solving important, complex problems alongside deeply thoughtful, driven, and collaborative teammates, read on. *Please note, we are open to remote candidates for this role. Your Impact on our Mission As a Staff Software Engineer on Zocdoc’s Search Services team, you will play a critical role in evolving one of the most important experiences we deliver to patients: helping them intuitively find and access the care that’s right for them. Our mission for 2026 and beyond is ambitious—we are transforming Zocdoc’s search function to an intelligent, intent-driven experience using embeddings, LLMs, and modern ranking models. This evolution requires rethinking our search architecture from the ground up, and delivering personalized, agentic flows that guide patients to care with unprecedented clarity and ease. You will lead the design and development of the high-performance backend services, APIs, and
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