Senior Search Engineer in London

Groupon is a marketplace where customers discover new experiences and services every day and local businesses thrive. To date, we have worked with over a million merchant partners worldwide, connecting over 16 million customers with deals across various categories. In a world often dominated by e-commerce giants, we stand out as one of the few platforms uniquely committed to helping local businesses succeed on a performance basis.

Groupon is on a radical journey to transform our business with a relentless pursuit of results. Even with thousands of employees spread across multiple continents, we still maintain a culture that inspires innovation, rewards risk-taking, and celebrates success. The impact here can be immediate due to our scale and the speed of our transformation. We’re a "best of both worlds" kind of company. We’re big enough to have the resources and scale, but small enough that a single person has a surprising amount of autonomy and can make a meaningful impact.

Grow as a developer by building things that help local businesses around the world thrive. Are you a passionate, energetic technology enthusiast eager to work at a rapid pace with the flexibility to work across our suite of technologies? Are you a problem solver; someone who enjoys debugging code, resolving issues, and creating solutions for common problems?

Our team is responsible for maintaining and developing Groupon's recommendations engine, ensuring personalized and relevant experiences for users. We optimize algorithms, enhance system performance, and support integration with external recommendation engines for specialized use cases, continuously improving recommendation quality through data-driven insights.

We are looking for a senior software engineer to join our team to support and evolve our Search and Ranking solutions, with expertise in building algorithms using search engines like Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, and Solr. This role requires a deep understanding of system design, scalability, and performance optimization.

What you’ll spend time on:

• Design, develop, and optimize algorithms for high-performance search and data retrieval.
• Architect and implement scalable, fault-tolerant, and maintainable system designs.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to gather requirements and deliver robust solutions.
• Conduct performance tuning, query optimization, and troubleshooting of search engine clusters.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and advancements in search engines and related technologies.
• Mentor junior engineers and provide technical leadership within the team.

We’re excited about you if you have:

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proven expertise in building and deploying algorithms using some search engines.
• Strong understanding of system design principles, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure.
• Proficiency in Python is a plus (but other languages work too).
• Experience with REST APIs, data modeling, and indexing strategies.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines is a plus.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work both independently and collaboratively.

We value engineers who are:

• Customer-focused: We believe that doing what’s right for the customer is ultimately what will drive our business forward.
• Obsessed with Quality: Your production code just works & scales linearly.
• Team players: You believe that more can be achieved together. You listen to feedback and also provide supportive feedback to help others grow/improve.
• Fast learners: We are willing to disrupt our existing business to trial new products and solutions. You love learning how to use new technologies and then rapidly apply them to new problems.
• Pragmatic: We do things quickly to learn what our customers desire. You know when it’s appropriate to take shortcuts that don’t sacrifice quality or maintainability.
• Owners: Engineers at Groupon know how to positively impact the business.

Groupon is an AI-First Company. We’re committed to building smarter, faster, and more innovative ways of working—and AI plays a key role in how we get there. We encourage candidates to leverage AI tools during the hiring process where it adds value, and we’re always keen to hear how technology improves the way you work. If you’re passionate about AI or curious to explore how it can elevate your role—you’ll be right at home here.

Groupon’s purpose is to build strong communities through thriving small businesses. To learn more about the world’s largest local e-commerce marketplace, click here. You can also find out more about us in the latest Groupon news as well as learning about our DEI approach. If all of this sounds like something that’s a great fit for you, then click apply and join us on a mission to become the ultimate destination for local experiences and services.

Beware of Recruitment Fraud: Groupon follows a merit-based recruitment process without charging job seekers any fees. We’ve noticed an increase in recruitment fraud, including fake job postings and fraudulent interviews and job offers aimed at stealing personal information or money. Be cautious of individuals falsely representing Groupon’s Talent Acquisition team with fake job offers. If you encounter any suspicious job offers or interview calls demanding money, recognise these as scams. Groupon is not responsible for losses from such dealings. For legitimate job openings (and a sneak peek into life at Groupon), always check our official career website at Groupon Careers.

Position Details:

• Location: London, England, United Kingdom
• Seniority level: Not Applicable
• Employment type: Full-time
• Job function: Engineering and Information Technology
• Industries: Technology, Information and Internet