>Jean Silva
Senior Search Engineer at AlphaSense
# Summary
Senior software engineer with 10+ years of experience in backend development and software architecture. Specialized in the search field (Information Retrieval) since 2013/14, working with Apache Solr, Elasticsearch, Opensearch, Apache Lucene, and Vespa.
# Experience
Senior Search Engineer
AlphaSense • October 2024 - Present
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
- Part of the core Search Infrastructure team for a global leader in market intelligence and AI-powered search.
- Design, build, and maintain Java microservices for mission-critical search operations.
- Operate and scale services across Kubernetes, Apache Solr (Cloud & Standalone), and Vespa.ai environments.
- Drive observability and reliability through advanced alerting to mitigate issues proactively.
- Utilize AI-assisted coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor) to enhance productivity and code quality.
- Maintain a hybrid search ecosystem combining Vespa (vector + keyword retrieval) and Solr, supporting live migrations.
Senior Search Engineer
Wallapop • March 2022 - September 2024 (2 years 7 months)
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
- Worked on the search engine for Spain's most used second-hand website.
- Implemented Java microservices to control the user search experience with high availability.
- Maintained and configured Apache Solr infrastructure.
- Represented Wallapop at Haystack Europe 2023 with a talk on alternative query strategies.
Software Engineer
trivago • January 2021 - February 2022 (1 year 2 months)
Düsseldorf, Germany
- Backend engineer in the Hotel Search team, developing APIs using Java Spring, gRPC, and Kafka.
- Managed microservices in GCP with Kubernetes.
- Became the first "Expert in Information Retrieval" at trivago in July 2021.
Senior Search Engineer (Elasticsearch)
real.digital • October 2020 - December 2020 (3 months)
Cologne, Germany
- Established foundational search pipeline elements and monitoring metrics for one of Germany's largest marketplaces.
Senior Software Engineer / Search Engineer
trivago • March 2016 - October 2020 (4 years 8 months)
Düsseldorf Area, Germany
- Optimized search suggestions across 30 languages and 50 countries.
- Focused on ranking, reranking, sorting, and filtering using Java and Python.
Senior PHP Developer
Flexy Negócios Digitais • March 2014 - February 2016 (2 years)
- Developed a SaaS e-commerce platform on AWS using Symfony2, Elasticsearch, and Memcached.
System Analyst
Digitro Tecnologia • September 2012 - March 2014 (1 year 7 months)
Florianópolis Area, Brazil
- Created Java web services for public security and call center management systems.
Freelance Software Developer
Chipus Microelectronics • January 2014 - February 2014 (2 months)
- Used Sphinx Search to index 40 million records, reducing search time from ~7 seconds to under 1 second.
PHP Developer
Bookess • May 2009 - March 2012 (2 years 11 months)
Desenvolvedor PHP
Central de Crédito • October 2008 - October 2009 (1 year 1 month)
# Education
Senai/SC
Technologist, Analysis and systems development
2010 - 2012