About the Role
Yahoo Search is central to Yahoo’s business, and improving search quality is key to maintaining our competitive edge. This role will help evolve foundational systems like Guided Search, leveraging modern machine learning and AI to guide users toward more relevant, optimized, and intelligent search experiences across their journey.
Description
About Yahoo
Yahoo is a global media and tech company that connects people to their passions. We reach hundreds of millions of people around the world, bringing them closer to what they love – from finance and sports, to shopping, gaming and news – with the trusted products, content and tech that fuel their day. For partners, we provide a full-stack platform for businesses to amplify growth and drive more meaningful connections across advertising, search and media.
About Search
Yahoo Search is one of the most highly scaled applications on the planet. We hire world-class engineers to support our ambitious product and platform goals. Our engineers work in a highly collaborative environment with a strong emphasis on technical excellence and innovation.
This is a unique opportunity as we’re reimagining the future of Search to reinvent how users find information and accomplish their goals. To achieve this vision, we’re integrating new technologies and expanding our infrastructure. This role demands strong technical judgment, analytical thinking, high-quality execution, and a passion for solving complex problems at scale.
The AI and Optimization team at Yahoo has a major impact on the user experience across Yahoo Search. Our team powers the understanding, orchestration, optimization, and generative AI engines that deliver modern, intelligent, and optimized search experiences to our users.
Responsibilities
• Partner closely with data scientists and ML engineers to productionize machine learning models, transforming research prototypes into scalable, reliable backend services
• Design, build, and operate high-throughput, low-latency APIs that power Guided Search experiences at large query-per-second (QPS) scale
• Own the end-to-end serving lifecycle for ML-powered systems, including model integration, feature retrieval, online inference, rollout, monitoring, and iteration
• Build and maintain robust data pipelines for training, validation, evaluation, and online serving, ensuring data quality, consistency, and freshness
• Define and uphold production-readiness standards, including scalability, reliability, observability, and fault tolerance
• Optimize systems for performance, cost efficiency, and operational excellence in a distributed, cloud-based environment
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, infrastructure, and platform teams to translate product requirements into backend architectures that can evolve over time
• Instrument services with meaningful metrics, logging, and alerting to support experimentation, A/B testing, and continuous improvement
• Contribute to technical design reviews, documentation, and engineering best practices, raising the overall technical bar of the team
Qualifications
• 4+ years of professional experience building large-scale, highly scalable backend systems
• Strong programming skills in C++ and Python, with experience writing production-quality code
• Experience designing and implementing backend APIs and services, including web or service-oriented architectures
• Hands-on experience with data pipelines and large-scale data processing, using technologies such as PySpark, Spark, or similar frameworks
• Experience integrating and productionizing machine learning models within backend systems
• Experience developing, deploying, and operating services in AWS environments
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
The material job duties and responsibilities of this role include those listed above as well as adhering to Yahoo policies; exercising sound judgment; working effectively, safely and inclusively with others; exhibiting trustworthiness and meeting expectations; and safeguarding business operations and brand integrity.
At Yahoo, we offer flexible hybrid work options that our employees love! While most roles don’t require regular office attendance, you may occasionally be asked to attend in-person events or team sessions. You’ll always get notice to make arrangements. Your recruiter will let you know if a specific job requires regular attendance at a Yahoo office or facility. If you have any questions about how this applies to the role, just ask the recruiter!
Yahoo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category. Yahoo will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. Yahoo is dedicated to providing an accessible environment for all candidates during the application process and for employees during their employment. If you need accessibility assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability, please submit a request via the Accommodation Request Form (www.yahooinc.com/careers/contact-us.html) or call +1.866.772.3182. Requests and calls received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.
We believe that a diverse and inclusive workplace strengthens Yahoo and deepens our relationships. When you support everyone to be their best selves, they spark discovery, innovation and creativity. Among other efforts, our 11 employee resource groups (ERGs) enhance a culture of belonging with programs, events and fellowship that help educate, support and create a workplace where all feel welcome.
The compensation for this position ranges from $128,250.00 - $266,875.00/yr and will vary depending on factors such as your location, skills and experience.The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of discretionary annual bonus or commissions. Our comprehensive benefits include healthcare, a great 401k, backup childcare, education stipends and much (much) more.Currently work for Yahoo? Please apply on our internal career site.
Top Skills
What We Do
Yahoo is a global media and tech company that connects people to their passions. We reach nearly 900 million people around the world, bringing them closer to what they love—from finance and sports, to shopping, gaming and news—with the trusted products, content and tech that fuel their day. For partners, we provide a full-stack platform for businesses to amplify growth and drive more meaningful connections across advertising, search and media.
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