Staff Software Developer - Search

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Coursera was launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. It is now one of the largest online learning platforms in the world, with 183 million registered learners as of June 30, 2025. Coursera partners with over 350 leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, and degrees. Coursera’s platform innovations enable instructors to deliver scalable, personalized, and verified learning experiences to their learners. Institutions worldwide rely on Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, citizens, and students in high-demand fields such as GenAI, data science, technology, and business. Coursera is a Delaware public benefit corporation and a B Corp.

We’re a global platform aiming to transform lives through learning by offering transformative courses, certificates, and degrees that empower learners worldwide to advance their careers through skill mastery. We’re looking for inventors, innovators, and lifelong learners eager to shape the future of education. If you’re ready to build the global programs and tools that fuel the power of online learning, join Team Coursera.

At Coursera, we are committed to building a globally diverse team and are thrilled to extend employment opportunities to individuals in any country where we have a legal entity. We require candidates to possess eligible working rights and have a compatible timezone overlap with their team to facilitate seamless collaboration. 

Coursera has a commitment to enabling flexibility and workspace choices for employees. Our interviews and onboarding are entirely virtual, providing a smooth and efficient experience for our candidates. As an employee, we enable you to select your main way of working, whether it's from home, one of our offices or hubs, or a co-working space near you.

Coursera was launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. It is now one of the largest online learning platforms in the world, with 183 million registered learners as of June 30, 2025. Coursera partners with over 350 leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, and degrees. Coursera’s platform innovations enable instructors to deliver scalable, personalized, and verified learning experiences to their learners. Institutions worldwide rely on Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, citizens, and students in high-demand fields such as GenAI, data science, technology, and business. Coursera is a Delaware public benefit corporation and a B Corp.

Join us in our mission to create a world where anyone, anywhere can transform their life through access to education. We're seeking talented individuals who share our passion and drive to revolutionize the way the world learns.

Coursera has a commitment to enabling flexibility and workspace choices for employees. Our interviews and onboarding are entirely virtual, providing a smooth and efficient experience for our candidates. As an employee, we enable you to select your main way of working, whether it's from home, one of our offices or hubs, or a co-working space near you. We require candidates to possess eligible working rights and have a compatible timezone overlap with their team to facilitate seamless collaboration. 

Job Overview:

We are on a mission to help millions of learners discover the right learning content through an exceptional search experience. The Search team is responsible for building user-facing search features that help learners find the most relevant courses, videos, and learning paths on Coursera. Here are the team's goals: 

Enhanced Discovery: Build intuitive search experiences that understand learner intent and surface the most relevant content. This includes AI-powered features like natural language search, intelligent suggestions, and personalized summaries.

Conversion & Engagement: Drive key product metrics like Click through rate and enrollment rates by making search more helpful and actionable.

Innovation: Experiment with AI/ML capabilities to continuously improve the search experience, from query understanding to result organizations.

Your responsibilities:

  • Lead the design and development of user-facing search features, including AI summaries, intelligent suggestions, and natural language search
  • Measure your work thoroughly, analyze results, and generate hypotheses to drive product changes through A/B testing and experimentation
  • Collaborate with ML and Data Science teams to integrate AI/ML capabilities into the search experience
  • Make pragmatic technical decisions that balance speed of iteration with long-term maintainability
  • Build scalable, performant search features that serve millions of learners worldwide

Basic qualifications:

  • 5+ years of experience as a software engineer, preferably on a product-focused team
  • Expertise in designing performant microservices and storage layers using common frameworks, languages, and infrastructure (e.g., Java, MySQL,, Kafka)
  • Data-driven and strongly motivated by success and learnings through experiments and metrics analysis
  • Proven ability to deliver features iteratively and adapt to changing product priorities
  • Strong commitment to Coursera's mission of transforming lives through learning

 Preferred Qualifications:

  • Demonstrated expertise in Information Retrieval-related products, including areas like query serving, indexing, and ranking
  • Experience with modern search technologies (e.g., Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Vespa, vector search, semantic search)
  • Familiarity with AI/ML applications in product features (e.g., LLMs, ranking models)
  • Strong track record of leadership and mentorship, preferably in a remote environment

We recognize that qualified candidates may not meet 100% of the qualifications listed above. If you’re passionate about this role and believe your skills and experiences align with what we’re looking for, we encourage you to apply.

If this opportunity interests you, you might like this course on Coursera:

 

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Coursera is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected class.
 
If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, please contact us at accommodations@coursera.org.
 
For California Candidates, please review our CCPA Applicant Notice here.
For our Global Candidates, please review our GDPR Recruitment Notice here.
 

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