Solr/OpenSearch Engineer

Job Title: Solr/OpenSearch Engineer
Req ID: 114555-1
Location: Sunnyvale, CA / Austin TX
Duration: 6 Months
Pay Rate: $55/hr - $58/hr on W2/C2C (All Inclusive)

We are seeking a highly skilled Solr/OpenSearch Engineer with strong experience in search platform administration, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and automation. The ideal candidate will be responsible for managing, optimizing, troubleshooting, and scaling enterprise search environments built on Apache Solr and/or OpenSearch.

The candidate should possess strong programming skills in Java and Python, hands-on expertise with cloud platforms, modern DevOps practices, Infrastructure-as-Code, containerization technologies, and AI-assisted development tools.

Key Responsibilities

• Administer, support, and optimize enterprise Solr and OpenSearch clusters in production environments.
• Design and manage search infrastructure including:
  • Sharding
  • Replication
  • Indexing
  • Cluster Scaling
  • High Availability
• Monitor search platform health, performance, capacity, and availability.
• Develop and maintain automation scripts using Python and Java.
• Troubleshoot indexing, query performance, cluster health, and node failures.
• Implement and manage:
  • Index Lifecycle Management (ILM)
  • Index State Management (ISM)
  • Query Optimization
  • Snapshot and Restore Strategies
• Work with REST APIs and Query DSL to build and manage search solutions.
• Deploy and manage infrastructure using Terraform, CloudFormation, or Ansible.
• Support CI/CD automation pipelines and release processes.
• Implement monitoring and observability using:
  • Prometheus
  • Grafana
  • CloudWatch
• Collaborate with developers, architects, and infrastructure teams to improve search performance and reliability.
• Utilize AI-assisted tools such as GitHub Copilot and Claude to accelerate development and operational efficiency.
• Participate in root cause analysis, incident management, and production support activities.

Required SkillsSearch Technologies

• Apache Solr
• OpenSearch
• Elasticsearch Concepts
• Search Optimization
• Index Management
• Query DSL
• REST APIs

Programming

• Java
• Python

Cloud Platforms

• AWS EC2
• IAM
• VPC
• S3
• CloudWatch

DevOps & Automation

• Terraform
• Ansible
• CloudFormation
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Git

Containers & Orchestration

• Docker
• Kubernetes

Monitoring & Observability

• Prometheus
• Grafana
• CloudWatch

Distributed Systems

• Sharding
• Replication
• Consistency Models
• Cluster Topology
• Fault Tolerance

Required Qualifications

• 5 years of hands-on experience supporting and administering Solr and/or OpenSearch environments.
• Strong programming experience in Java and Python.
• Experience managing large-scale distributed search platforms.
• Hands-on experience with AWS cloud services.
• Experience managing clusters in AWS and at least one non-AWS cloud environment (GCP preferred).
• Strong troubleshooting and performance tuning experience.
• Experience implementing Infrastructure-as-Code solutions.
• Working knowledge of containerized environments using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Strong understanding of software development lifecycle and Git-based code management.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch migrations.
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools such as Claude or GitHub Copilot.
• Experience building highly available and scalable search platforms.
• Exposure to Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices.
• AWS Certification or Cloud Certification.
• Experience in enterprise production environments supporting mission-critical applications.