Software Engineer 4 - Graph Search

Netflix is one of the world's leading entertainment services, with over 300 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.

About the Team

The Graph Search team is responsible for building and operating the highly scalable Search-as-a-Service platform that powers search and intelligent discovery across Netflix's internal studio and production applications. Our system streamlines search functions across diverse workflows, allowing hundreds of internal applications and thousands of studio professionals to quickly find, filter, and retrieve highly structured data.

We handle massive data volumes and complex relationships, moving data from transactional source systems into eventually consistent search indices in near-real-time. Most recently, our team has expanded into the intersection of search and AI, taking ownership of intelligent chat-based interfaces that allow users to discover and explore content data using natural language.

The Scope of Work

As an engineer on our team, your tasks will span standard backend engineering as well as deep distributed systems challenges. You will work on optimizing high-throughput data pipelines, managing a massive index topology across large search clusters, and introducing intelligent query-orchestration mechanisms.

Check out the following tech blogs to learn more about the Graph Search platform:

• How Netflix Content Engineering makes a federated graph searchable

• How Netflix Content Engineering makes a federated graph searchable (Part 2)

• Reverse Searching Netflix’s Federated Graph

• The AI Evolution of Graph Search at Netflix: From Structured Queries to Natural Language

See the video to learn more about the entire Infrastructure & Solution team: Content Infrastructure & Solutions Team

Key Responsibilities

• Feature Development and Ownership: Implement and own the lifecycle of backend features, search orchestration layers, and data-indexing pipelines end-to-end.

• Distributed Systems at Scale: Participate in managing, scaling, and optimizing search cluster architecture.

• Performance Engineering: Collaborate on throughput optimizations, sharding strategies, data consistency, and low-latency metrics for real-time data movement.

• Technical Collaboration: Participate in code reviews, technical design discussions, and operational improvements to ensure high developer effectiveness.

• Testing and Automation: Maintain robust testing practices (unit, integration, and end-to-end) to support high confidence in a continuous deployment culture.

What We Are Looking For

• Core Software Engineering: Solid foundational knowledge of backend software engineering, typically using Java or similar object-oriented languages.

• Distributed Infrastructure Aptitude: A strong interest or foundational experience in large-scale data processing, data partitioning, sharding, and real-time messaging workflows.

• Search and Indexing Exposure: Foundational knowledge or direct experience working with search technologies such as OpenSearch or Elasticsearch, as well as graph databases such as AWS Neptune.

• Operational Mindset: An understanding of production environments, with a dedication to writing clean, maintainable, and performant code supported by robust testing and monitoring.

• Effective Communication and Growth: A motivated problem-solver who communicates technical updates clearly, actively seeks feedback, and is comfortable navigating technical ambiguity.

Nice to Have

• Prior experience building centralized platforms, frameworks, or shared tooling intended for other software engineers to consume.

• Foundational full-stack or UI experience (TypeScript, React, GraphQL) to contribute to self-service portals and search interfaces.

• Interest or experience in graph-based data stores (such as AWS Neptune) or hierarchical data models.

• An interest in learning or applying AI patterns (such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation/RAG, model observability, or agentic workflows) to expand natural language search functionality.

Tech Stack

• Languages: Java, Python

• Frameworks: SpringBoot, ReactJS

• APIs: GraphQL, gRPC, REST

• Messaging: Apache Kafka

• Workflow and Data Processing: Netflix Conductor, Apache Flink

• Databases: OpenSearch, Elasticsearch, AWS Neptune, Cassandra, PostgreSQL

• Cloud Platform: AWS

Inclusion is a Netflix value and we strive to host a meaningful interview experience for all candidates. If you want an accommodation/adjustment for a disability or any other reason during the hiring process, please send a request to your recruiting partner.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and celebrate diversity, recognizing that diversity builds stronger teams. We approach diversity and inclusion seriously and thoughtfully. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.