Software Engineer, Vespa Core (Java)

Does it sound interesting to work on an open source platform managing the data and real-time search and inference for some of the largest companies in the world? Would you thrive on building the core of a high-performance, open-source AI search engine — the Java runtime, container, and APIs that thousands of applications run on? If so, we want you to join our team at Vespa.ai as a Software Engineer, Vespa Core (Java)!

About Vespa.ai:

Vespa.ai is a team of passionate builders. We maintain and develop the Apache 2.0 licensed open-source AI search platform Vespa.

Vespa is a fully featured search engine and vector database. It supports vector search (ANN), lexical search, and structured data search, all in a single query. Integrated machine-learning model inference enables the application of AI to make sense of data in real time. Together with Vespa's proven scalability and high availability, this empowers to create production-ready search applications at any scale and with any combination of features. Our users and customers are #1 in e-commerce, content, and financial services globally, and are powering companies such as Perplexity, Spotify, Yahoo, Wix, and many more.

In addition to our open-source platform, Vespa.ai develops and runs Vespa Cloud, a robust SaaS offering that allows businesses to harness the power of our technology with ease.

At Vespa.ai, we are extremely focused on automating everything we do to grow fast and maintain high quality. In all roles, we scale through technology, not simply by adding larger teams. We take pride in being small, nimble, and the most productive.

Position overview

Vespa is developed in the open on GitHub, tested continuously, and released daily. The Java side of the platform includes the jdisc application container that hosts all query and document processing, the configuration system that keeps thousands of nodes consistent, and the APIs and SDKs our users build on. Changes here ship to every Vespa deployment in the world.

We are seeking an experienced Java engineer to develop and improve these core components. You will design and implement features in the Vespa platform, work on performance and robustness of the container and its runtime, and collaborate closely with the engineers working on the C++ search and content engines. This is a hands-on, senior individual contributor role in a team where code quality, performance and correctness matter.

At our Trondheim office, we work office-first: you will be based on-site most of the time, with the flexibility to work from home/remotely when needed, as agreed with your manager.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement and maintain Java components in the open-source Vespa platform, in particular the jdisc application container and its runtime.

• Improve performance, resource efficiency and robustness of the container layer, including JVM tuning and profiling.

• Develop and evolve the public APIs, configuration model and component framework used by Vespa applications.

• Collaborate with the engineers working on the C++ engine and on Vespa Cloud on features spanning the whole stack.

• Review code, write tests and documentation, and engage with the open-source community on issues and contributions.

• Investigate and resolve complex production issues reported by users and customers.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional Java development experience.

• Deep knowledge of the Java language, the JVM, concurrency and memory management.

• Experience building and operating server-side systems with high performance and availability requirements.

• Solid understanding of the network protocols and standards that server-side Java systems build on, such as HTTP/2, TLS and gRPC.

• Good understanding of distributed systems concepts.

• Good understanding of sound software engineering principles and practices.

• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills.

• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.

• Fluent written and spoken English. Norwegian is not required.

Desired Skills

• Experience with JVM profiling and performance tuning (JFR, async-profiler, etc.).

• Familiarity with search engines, databases or other data-intensive and large-scale distributed systems.

• Experience with Maven-based build systems and large monorepos.

Some of Our Tools and Services

• Java (current LTS), Maven, JUnit

• GitHub Enterprise Cloud (including GitHub Actions), Buildkite

• Podman/Docker; daily releases to DockerHub

• Grafana, Jira Cloud, Slack

Why Join Us:

• Opportunities for professional growth and development as part of one of Europe's most exciting start-ups!

• Be part of a cutting-edge team working on innovative search and recommendation technology.

• Work on a team where we don't believe in silos between engineers; there aren't "developers", "ops people", and "sysadmins". We're all engineers solving problems the smart way together!

• Competitive salary and benefits.

• Relocating to Norway? We'll help you settle in, and offer voluntary Norwegian language training.