Senior Search Applications Performance Engineer

Who are we?

Cohere is the leading security-first enterprise AI company. We build cutting-edge foundation AI models and end-to-end products that are designed to solve real-world business problems.

We’re training and deploying frontier models for enterprises who are building AI systems. We believe that our work is instrumental to the widespread adoption of AI and we are looking for folks that want to be part of that.

We obsess over what we build. Each one of us is responsible for contributing to increasing the capabilities of our models and the value they drive for our customers. Cohere is a team of researchers, engineers, designers, and more, who are all passionate about their craft.

We are a global technology company co-headquartered in Toronto and San Francisco, with key offices in London, New York City, Montreal, Seoul, Germany and Paris. Join us!

WHY THIS ROLE?

Join the Compass team to optimize and scale our Search Applications and infrastructure, ensuring users receive fast, reliable, and intelligent search experiences. You'll work at the intersection of search technology and performance engineering, revolutionizing how users interact with AI-powered search through continuous optimization, benchmarking, and infrastructure enhancements. Your work will directly enhance document understanding capabilities and support the development of new tool surfaces designed for agentic users.

IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL…

• Implement performance monitoring and optimization strategies for Compass search services and the integration with North
• Develop and maintain benchmarking frameworks to evaluate search model performance and infrastructure efficiency
• Collaborate with modeling teams to optimize search models for faster response times and reduced resource consumption
• Work on scaling the search services while maintaining high availability and low latency
• Partner with product teams to translate performance requirements into technical implementations
• Develop and optimize new tool surfaces for agentic search experiences

YOU MAY BE A GOOD FIT IF…

• You have proficiency in Python and backend search technologies (OpenSearch, ElasticSearch, Weaviate, FastAPI)
• You possess experience with data or evaluation pipelines and performance benchmarking
• You have experience profiling applications hosted on a mix of CPU, GPU, and autoscaled compute nodes
• You can communicate technical performance metrics effectively to cross-functional teams
• You have 4+ years of experience contributing to production environments

IT'S A BONUS IF YOU HAVE…

• Experience with Kubernetes, Helm, and infrastructure deployment
• Familiarity with GPU-based model inference optimization (ONNX, Triton, vLLM)
• History working in the search and discovery domain

FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES AT COHERE ENJOY THESE PERKS:

• A weekly lunch stipend of $75/£75 or equivalent in your local currency for lunch.
• Full health and dental benefits, including a separate budget for mental health.
• RRSP matching, 401K, Pension Scheme.
• 100% Parental Leave top-up for up to 6 months, for either parent.
• Annual enrichment benefits:

Arts & culture, fitness/wellness, quality time, and a workspace improvement credit.

Education & learning stipend for conferences, courses, and coaching.

• 6 weeks of paid vacation (30 working days!)
• Budget for traveling to other offices if you are remote, plus an annual company offsite.

HOW AND WHERE WE WORK:

• Cohere is remote-friendly. We have offices in Toronto, San Francisco, New York City, London, Paris, Montreal, and more coming soon.
• For those in the office: a daily lunch program, plenty of snacks, and regular community and social events.
• For those not near an office: a co-working benefit so you can work alongside others in your city.
• Everyone receives a $500 home office stipend to set up your workspace properly.

If any of the above doesn’t line up exactly with your experience, we still encourage you to apply.

We strive to create an inclusive work environment for all; we welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are committed to providing equal opportunities. Should you require any accommodations during the recruitment process, please submit an Accommodations Request Form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12a6IrLdF3kI2nonKSr4tiFuz18rLQbaeYV-JM9L4o9Q/edit, and we will work together to meet your needs.

We may use AI-enabled tools to screen and assess applicants against the criteria for this position. This helps our recruiters identify potentially qualified candidates, but it doesn't limit the applications our recruiters may review or consider.