Senior Software Engineer (Search)
Awetomaton · Beavercreek, OH
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Jul 23, 2026
Beavercreek, OH
Jul 25, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior engineering role focused on building and operating enterprise search and discovery systems that unify access across heterogeneous data sources, including text, structured data, and geospatial formats. The work centers on designing indexing and retrieval architectures, applying techniques such as vector search, semantic search, and retrieval-augmented generation, and tuning relevance at scale. The role suits an experienced search or information-retrieval engineer comfortable with access-controlled environments; a DoD Top Secret clearance is required, with sponsorship available for strong candidates. Weekly on-site presence in Dayton, OH is expected.
Senior level · 6+ years · Dayton, OH · Top Secret clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $109,261 (middle half $92,000–$139,083).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
The role is hybrid (not fully remote) and requires weekly on-site visits and customer meetings in Dayton, OH.
A DoD Top Secret clearance is listed as required; the posting notes that sponsorship is available for highly qualified candidates, meaning candidates who can obtain the clearance are acceptable.
The degree requirement (BS in CS, Data Science, or related field) explicitly accepts 'equivalent experience,' so no formal degree is hard-gated.
Elasticsearch/OpenSearch/Solr are listed as interchangeable examples of required search platform experience; a vector database or vector search library is similarly required but no single product is mandated — vector search is captured as the gate.
GIS/geospatial data formats (OGC standards, feature services), access-aware/attribute-based retrieval, enterprise metadata management/data cataloging, GitLab CI, ArgoCD, and Agile all appear under the 'Desired Education and Experience' section and are marked preferred.
The alt SOC (15-2051 Data Scientists) reflects the significant ML/NLP and RAG component, though the primary day-to-day work is building and operating search/retrieval software systems, making 15-1252 the stronger fit.
Start date is noted as August 2026.
Requires a Top Secret clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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