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Senior Software Engineer | Search (all genders)

Universal Music is the market leader in the music business. The world’s most famous and most successful record labels belong to us. We’ve been writing music history for over 100 years representing legendary musicians across all genres. Our accomplishments are driven by our love for music, extraordinary artists and our ambitious team. In everything we do, we are committed to artistry, innovation and entrepreneurship. 

Our passion is music and technology. We operate like a startup and work with the best people in the industry. Our solutions are driving the future of Digital Music, eCommerce & Finance and have significant impact on the success of UMG. We are looking for an eager and collaborative individual to work with us.

Here’s your chance to join! Effective immediately, we’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer | Search (all genders) to become a part of our Search and Discovery team, located in Salzburg, Austria. It will be a permanent full-time position (hybrid). 

Your gig:

  • You will be part of a global team working on the bleeding edge of music industry Search & Discovery tools
  • You will conduct research across a wide range of topics within the information retrieval space, developing / iterating POCs with clients and bringing forward to production systems
  • You will contribute to projects that facilitate the success of Marketing, Licensing and Analytics departments, and technologies powering Artist facing tools
  • You will be interacting with customers and clients in a "forward-deployed" manner, upholding architectural and engineering standards across several business units

We are keen to jam with you if:

  • You have several years software engineering experience with proficiency in compiled and scripting languages, e.g. Python, Golang, Rust, C/C++ or Java
  • You are familiar with information retrieval systems and search index internals, e.g. indexing, ranking, query construction, and have a deep knowledge of search platforms such as Apache Lucene or Elasticsearch
  • You have worked on production codebases, data processing pipelines and understand large-scale system architecture in detail
  • You have optimised / productionised ML pipelines and models

Bonus points:

  • Applied ML research / engineering experience specialising in Information Retrieval systems
  • Experience developing LLM-adjacent tools and technologies, e.g. RAG, knowledge graphs, prompt engineering, embedding models, and vector stores
  • Knowledge of AI safety + alignment, and Gen AI-specific web security e.g. prompt injection and social engineering

Your personality matters:

  • Software engineering is a team-gig: Getting along with each other on a professional level is important; talking the same language is crucial; knowing when and how to say yes or no, when to ask questions, how to disagree in a constructive way is critical
  • Don't expect everything to be pre-digested: you have a voice and an impact on the success of the product which is driven by a constant feedback loop that surfaces different perspectives; you will need to look at problems and creatively come up with solutions on your own
  • You strive for mastery in your profession; you are a life-long learner and never lose your curiosity
  • You've been described as reliable and well-organized which allows you to stay focused, structured and calm - even in stressful situations
  • Your thinking is guided by strategy, analysis, and innovation which enables you to connect the dots quickly and logically
  • You favour pragmatic approaches and know the difference between a perfect and a functional solution
  • You have a user-focused mindset, i.e. you care about delivering features that solve real problems, and fast iteration is second nature to you

What we have to offer:

  • A team of wonderful and highly qualified colleagues working in a friendly and agile environment
  • Flexible working conditions allowing for a great work-live balance (partially remote is possible)
  • The role comes with a collective agreement minimum gross salary of €3,175 per month - in practice, we offer an attractive and competitive compensation package tailored to your skills and experience
  • Freedom of choice for your technical equipment (Mac, Windows)
  • Lots of opportunities to take on responsibility and ownership
  • A generous office space, free coffee, free parking etc.
  • Dolby Atmos Studio for listening sessions etc.

We look forward to receiving your application via our online application form! Please upload your documents (letter of motivation / cover letter, CV, references) as files and state your earliest starting date as well as salary expectations.