Vector Index Engineer at Zilliz

Department: Engineering

Compensation

$175,000 – $250,000/yr

Setup: Hybrid
Location: Redwood City, California
Type: Full-time
Level: mid
Posted: Jun 22, 2026

Description

Zilliz is hiring a Vector Index Engineer to research, evaluate, and implement new vector indexing and retrieval algorithms for Milvus, Zilliz Cloud, and Vector Lakebase. The role combines research with production engineering, focusing on ANN algorithms, index structures, quantization, compression, CPU/GPU acceleration, performance optimization, benchmarking, and debugging complex retrieval systems. Candidates should have at least three years of relevant experience, a bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience, and strong C++ or Rust programming ability.

Required Skills

Vector search
ANN algorithms
Index structures
Quantization
Compression
CPU/GPU acceleration
Performance optimization
C++/Rust
Performance debugging

Additional Information

Minimum Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
Required Previous Experiences: At least 3 years of experience in vector search, ANN algorithms, search systems, high-performance computing, or performance-critical systems
Preferred Qualifications: Experience with vector similarity search, ANN algorithms, index structures, quantization, compression, reranking, or high-performance retrieval systems
Experience with performance optimization and systematic debugging, especially around CPU/GPU execution, SIMD, memory layout, concurrency, I/O, or large-scale data processing
Strong interest in research-driven engineering, including reading papers, evaluating tradeoffs, building prototypes, and turning ideas into production systems
Interest in using AI tools to improve research, coding, testing, benchmarking, documentation, and performance analysis

About Zilliz

Zilliz

vector database and AI technologiesRedwood City, California

Zilliz is the company behind Milvus, the open-source vector database, and Zilliz Cloud, a fully managed vector database for building AI and RAG applications.