Where Ambition Meets Innovation
Build a career that matches all your initiative with an impressive dose of innovation. From cutting-edge resources and a collaborative environment to the freedom to make an impact and more, you’ll find the ingredients you need at LPL Financial to shape your success while helping clients pursue their financial goals.
Job Overview:The Senior Engineer will design and build core AI knowledge infrastructure that powers intelligent applications across the enterprise.
This role focuses on distributed systems, retrieval architectures, and AI platform services, enabling applications and agents to discover, retrieve, and reason over large-scale enterprise data. You will work at the intersection of search, vector retrieval, LLMs, and real-time data systems, building high-performance platforms used by AI and application teams.
The ideal candidate is a strong backend/platform engineer with deep experience in building scalable systems and modern AI-powered retrieval architectures.
Responsibilities:AI Retrieval & Search Platform
Design and build high-scale retrieval systems combining keyword search, semantic search, and vector-based retrieval.
Develop RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) infrastructure including indexing, retrieval, ranking, and context assembly.
Build and optimize search indices, vector stores, and hybrid retrieval systems for relevance, latency, and scale.
Implement advanced ranking, relevance tuning, and personalization pipelines.
Data Pipelines & Indexing Systems
Build streaming and batch pipelines for ingesting and transforming structured and unstructured data.
Develop enrichment pipelines (chunking, embeddings, metadata extraction, classification).
Design systems for real-time indexing, incremental updates, and freshness guarantees.
Optimize data flow, storage, and compute efficiency at scale.
AI Platform Services & APIs
Build low-latency, highly available APIs that expose retrieval and knowledge services to applications and AI agents.
Develop reusable SDKs and service abstractions for easy integration into product teams.
Enable context retrieval, query understanding, and response augmentation for downstream AI systems.
Establish patterns for multi-tenant, scalable platform services.
LLM & Intelligent Systems Integration
Integrate LLMs with retrieval systems to enable grounded, context-aware experiences.
Build systems for context construction, prompt augmentation, and response orchestration.
Implement evaluation frameworks for relevance, grounding quality, and user experience.
Support use cases like AI assistants, copilots, search experiences, and automation agents.
Performance, Scalability & Reliability
Design for low-latency (<100ms retrieval), high-throughput, and horizontal scalability.
Implement caching, sharding, and distributed query execution strategies.
Build observability pipelines (metrics, logs, tracing) for system performance and usage insights.
Drive resiliency, fault tolerance, and system reliability at scale.
Technical Leadership
Lead design and architecture of large-scale AI platform components.
Mentor engineers on distributed systems, retrieval architectures, and AI engineering practices.
Drive adoption of modern engineering practices (CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, automated testing).
Partner with AI, data, and product teams to shape next-gen intelligent platform capabilities.
We’re looking for strong collaborators who deliver exceptional client experiences and thrive in fast-paced, team-oriented environments. Our ideal candidates pursue greatness, act with integrity, and are driven to help our clients succeed. We value those who embrace creativity, continuous improvement, and contribute to a culture where we win together and create and share joy in our work.
Requirements:Minimum of 8 years of experience in backend or platform engineering.
Experience building distributed systems, search platforms, or large-scale data services.
Hands-on experience with APIs, microservices, and cloud-native architectures.
Experience with search systems, indexing, or retrieval pipelines.
Experience programming skills in Java, Python, or Go.
Experience with cloud platforms and containerized environments (Kubernetes).
Experience with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, vector databases, or hybrid retrieval architectures.
Familiarity with RAG systems, embeddings, and LLM integration patterns.
Experience building AI platforms, copilots, or agent-based systems.
Experience with real-time data systems (Kafka, streaming pipelines).
Strong understanding of performance optimization in distributed systems.
Pay Range:
$115,154.00 - $191,889.00Actual base salary varies based on factors, including but not limited to, relevant skill, prior experience, education, base salary of internal peers, demonstrated performance, and geographic location. Additionally, LPL Total Rewards package is highly competitive, designed to support your success at work, at home, and at play – such as 401K matching, health benefits, employee stock options, paid time off, volunteer time off, and more. Your recruiter will be happy to discuss all that LPL has to offer!
Company Overview:
LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: LPLA) is among the fastest growing wealth management firms in the U.S. As a leader in the financial advisor-mediated marketplace(6) , LPL supports over 32,000 financial advisors and the wealth management practices of approximately 1,100 financial institutions, servicing and custodying approximately $2.3 trillion in brokerage and advisory assets on behalf of approximately 8 million Americans. The firm provides a wide range of advisor affiliation models, investment solutions, fintech tools and practice management services, ensuring that advisors and institutions have the flexibility to choose the business model, services, and technology resources they need to run thriving businesses. For further information about LPL, please visit www.lpl.com.
At LPL, independence means that advisors and institution leaders have the freedom they deserve to choose the business model, services, and technology resources that allow them to run a thriving business. They have the flexibility to do business their way. And they have the freedom to manage their client relationships, because they know their clients best. Simply put, we take care of our advisors and institutions, so they can take care of their clients.
For further information about LPL, please visit www.lpl.com.
Join the LPL team and help us make a difference by turning life’s aspirations into financial realities. Please log in or create an account to apply to this position. Principals only. EOE.
Information on Interviews:
LPL will only communicate with a job applicant directly from an @lplfinancial.com email address and will never conduct an interview online or in a chatroom forum. During an interview, LPL will not request any form of payment from the applicant, or information regarding an applicant’s bank or credit card. Should you have any questions regarding the application process, please contact LPL’s Human Resources Solutions Center at (855) 575-6947.
EAC 5.19.26
Skills Required
- Minimum of 8 years of experience in backend or platform engineering.
- Experience building distributed systems, search platforms, or large-scale data services.
- Hands-on experience with APIs, microservices, and cloud-native architectures.
- Experience with search systems, indexing, or retrieval pipelines.
- Programming experience in Java, Python, or Go.
- Experience with cloud platforms and containerized environments (Kubernetes).
- Experience with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, vector databases, or hybrid retrieval architectures.
- Familiarity with RAG systems, embeddings, and LLM integration patterns.
- Experience building AI platforms, copilots, or agent-based systems.
- Experience with real-time data systems (Kafka, streaming pipelines).
- Strong understanding of performance optimization in distributed systems.
LPL Financial Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about LPL Financial and has not been reviewed or approved by LPL Financial.
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Retirement Support — Retirement programs include a company 401(k) match that is frequently highlighted as a strong component of total rewards. Feedback suggests these features meaningfully enhance long‑term financial value.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — An employee stock purchase plan with a meaningful discount and lookback is highlighted as accessible ownership. Feedback suggests the plan adds tangible upside beyond base salary.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave has been expanded alongside family‑building and adoption support. Feedback suggests these benefits compare well to large‑employer standards.
LPL Financial Insights
What We Do
Financial advice is changing, and at LPL Financial, we’re at the forefront. We’re building a future where advisors can—with no friction or complexity, as simple as turning the dials—pick the business model, services, technology, and product mix that best meet their clients’ needs. With one platform, one sign-on, and one team to call, you can take your business anywhere you want it to go. There are no limits to your growth, and we’ll partner with you every step of the way. Your greatness is our goal. LPL Financial is a leader in the retail financial advice market and the nation’s largest independent broker/dealer*. We serve independent financial advisors and financial institutions, providing them with the technology, research, clearing and compliance services, and practice management programs they need to create and grow thriving practices. LPL enables them to provide objective guidance to millions of American families seeking wealth management, retirement planning, financial planning and asset management solutions. LPL.com Securities and Advisory Services offered through LPL Financial. A registered investment advisor, Member FINRA/SIPC.
