Senior Software Engineer, Vector Index Research

Team: Vector Database

Location: Redwood City

Commitment: Full-Time

Workplace Type: hybrid

Zilliz is a fast-growing startup developing the industry’s leading vector database for enterprise-grade AI. Founded by the engineers behind Milvus, the world’s most popular open-source vector database, the company builds next-generation database technologies to help organizations quickly create AI applications. On a mission to democratize AI, Zilliz is committed to simplifying data management for AI applications and making vector databases accessible to every organization.

What youll do:

Research, evaluate, and implement new vector indexing and retrieval algorithms for Milvus, Zilliz Cloud, and Vector Lakebase
Read papers and track emerging work in vector search, ANN algorithms, index structures, quantization, compression, reranking, GPU acceleration, and AI retrieval systems
Build high-performance vector indexing components, including index building, query paths, vector preprocessing, quantization, compression, memory layout, and CPU/GPU acceleration
Optimize vector retrieval performance across latency, throughput, recall, memory usage, index build time, and cost efficiency
Design benchmarks and evaluation frameworks to compare algorithms and implementations under real data scale, real query patterns, and real AI workloads
Debug and solve complex performance issues across algorithm implementation, CPU/GPU execution, SIMD/vectorization, memory access, concurrency, and I/O
Turn research prototypes into maintainable, testable, and evolvable production-grade indexing capabilities
Use AI tools across the research and engineering workflow, including paper analysis, prototype generation, code implementation, testing, benchmarking, documentation, and performance analysis

What were looking for:

3+ years of experience in vector search, ANN algorithms, search systems, high-performance computing, or performance-critical systems
Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
Strong C++ or Rust programming ability and solid engineering fundamentals
Experience with vector similarity search, ANN algorithms, index structures, quantization, compression, reranking, or high-performance retrieval systems is a strong plus
Strong interest in research-driven engineering: reading papers, evaluating tradeoffs, building prototypes, and turning ideas into production systems
Experience with performance optimization and systematic debugging is a strong plus, especially around CPU/GPU execution, SIMD, memory layout, concurrency, I/O, or large-scale data processing
Interest in using AI tools to improve research, coding, testing, benchmarking, documentation, and performance analysis

How we operate:

Research-driven, production-focused: We track frontier algorithms, but care most about whether they work under real data scale, real query patterns, and real production constraints
Extreme performance: We care about every memory access, every query path, and every tradeoff between recall and latency
AI-first engineering: We actively use AI to accelerate paper reading, prototyping, coding, testing, documentation, and performance analysis, but human judgment and engineering taste still matter most
Fast and pragmatic: We work on hard vector indexing and retrieval problems, but we ship them into Milvus, Zilliz Cloud, and Vector Lakebase
Open source by default: Milvus is a core part of our engineering culture, and strong indexing capabilities should stand up to public design, code, and community usage

Benefits:

Competitive compensation (cash + equity)
Regular bonus and equity refresh opportunities
Medical, dental, and vision insurance
Paid time off, including vacation, sick leave, and global reset/wellbeing days
Generous 401(k) and regional retirement plans

Zilliz is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.