Senior Backend Software Engineer

Job Title - Senior Software Engineer – Search, Matching & Distributed Systems Location: Irving, TX – Hybrid Interview: Face To Face / In Person Employment Type: 6-12+ Months Contract – Open Openings: 2 Job Summary We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer / Technical Consultant to design, develop, and support VizMatch, an enterprise search and intelligent matching platform. This role will build scalable APIs, high-performance search solutions, event-driven data pipelines, and cloud-native services capable of supporting millions of transactions daily. The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in Python, Elasticsearch, Microsoft Azure, Kafka, REST APIs, distributed systems, and large-scale data processing, with experience building highly available and low-latency backend applications. Key Responsibilities Design and develop scalable backend services using Python.Build and maintain high-performance REST APIs using FastAPI and asynchronous Python.Design, optimize, and maintain Elasticsearch indexes, mappings, queries, and search relevance.Develop intelligent search and matching capabilities across large-scale datasets.Build event-driven architectures using Kafka and Azure Event Hub.Develop high-throughput data ingestion, transformation, and indexing pipelines.Integrate applications with Databricks and enterprise data platforms.Design, deploy, and secure cloud-native applications on Microsoft Azure.Implement CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment processes.Monitor application health, performance, logging, and observability.Optimize API latency, search/indexing performance, and infrastructure utilization.Participate in architecture discussions, design reviews, code reviews, and production support.Collaborate with product managers, architects, data scientists, and engineering teams.Required Qualifications 7+ years of software engineering experience with strong Python backend development.Strong experience building and operating production-grade REST APIs, including FastAPI and asynchronous Python.Hands-on production experience with Elasticsearch, including:Query DSLRelevance tuningMapping designAggregationsMulti-searchBulk indexingIndex lifecycle managementExperience building scalable search platforms, matching engines, or recommendation solutions.Strong experience with Kafka or enterprise event-streaming platforms, including producers/consumers, Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, and event-driven architecture.Experience with Microsoft Azure, including App Services, Azure Linux VMs, Managed Identity, Key Vault, Storage, Monitor, and Event Hub.Experience with Git, Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines, and Docker for CI/CD and automated deployments.Working knowledge of PostgreSQL, SQL Server, or other relational databases.Strong troubleshooting and production support experience.Solid understanding of distributed systems and microservices architecture.Preferred Qualifications Experience with AI-assisted search, semantic search, vector search, or intelligent matching.Experience with Databricks, PySpark, and Delta Lake for data ingestion and ETL/ELT.Experience integrating machine learning, Azure OpenAI, or LLM-based solutions.Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, or Pulumi.Familiarity with OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, or Azure Monitor.Experience in healthcare or supply chain environments.Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot or Codex. Key Technology Stack Python | FastAPI | Elasticsearch | Kafka | Azure Event Hub | Microsoft Azure | Databricks | PySpark | REST APIs | Docker | Azure DevOps | CI/CD | PostgreSQL/SQL Server | Distributed Systems | Microservices | Semantic/Vector Search | AI/LLM Ideal Candidate The strongest candidates will be senior backend engineers who have built production-scale search or matching platforms and are comfortable working across Python, Elasticsearch, Kafka, Azure, and distributed data systems. Experience with AI-powered search or intelligent matching is a strong plus.