Domain
Backend Development
Skill Profile
Indexing, full-text search, aggregations, mappings, analyzers
Roles
10
where this skill appears
Levels
5
structured growth path
Mandatory requirements
35
the other 15 optional
Backend Development
Search Engines
3/17/2026
Choose your current level and compare expectations. The items below show what to cover to advance to the next level.
The table shows how skill depth grows from Junior to Principal. Click a row to see details.
| Role | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Analytics Engineer | Uses Elasticsearch / OpenSearch at a basic level in dbt. Performs simple tasks using ready-made templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices. | |
| Backend Developer (C#/.NET) | Required | Uses Elasticsearch / OpenSearch at a basic level. Performs simple tasks following established templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices. |
| Backend Developer (Java/Kotlin) | Required | Uses Elasticsearch / OpenSearch at basic level. Performs simple tasks using ready templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices. |
| Backend Developer (PHP) | Required | Uses Elasticsearch / OpenSearch at a basic level. Performs simple tasks using ready-made templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices. |
| Backend Developer (Python) | Understands full-text search concept. Performs basic queries via elasticsearch-py. Knows the difference between match and term queries. Indexes documents. | |
| BI Analyst | Uses Elasticsearch / OpenSearch at a basic level in Power BI/Tableau. Performs simple tasks using ready-made templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices. | |
| Data Analyst | Uses Elasticsearch / OpenSearch at a basic level in pandas/Jupyter. Performs simple tasks using ready-made templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices. | |
| Data Engineer | Uses Elasticsearch/OpenSearch at a basic level in Airflow/dbt. Performs simple tasks using established templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices. | |
| LLM Engineer | Uses Elasticsearch/OpenSearch at basic level in transformers/vLLM. Performs simple tasks using ready templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices. | |
| NLP Engineer | Required | Knows Elasticsearch basics: indexes, documents, basic queries. Performs simple full-text search queries for NLP tasks. Understands analyzer and tokenizer concepts. |
| Role | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Analytics Engineer | Independently implements tasks with Elasticsearch / OpenSearch in dbt. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests using dbt test. | |
| Backend Developer (C#/.NET) | Required | Independently implements Elasticsearch integration in .NET with NEST/Elastic.Clients.Elasticsearch. Designs index mappings, builds complex queries with bool/nested filters, and implements bulk indexing pipelines for searchable content. |
| Backend Developer (Java/Kotlin) | Required | Independently implements Elasticsearch integration in Java with Spring Data Elasticsearch/RestHighLevelClient. Designs index mappings, builds complex queries with QueryBuilders, and implements bulk indexing with refresh strategies. |
| Backend Developer (PHP) | Required | Independently implements Elasticsearch / OpenSearch tasks. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests. |
| Backend Developer (Python) | Designs mappings and analyzers. Uses bool queries, aggregations, highlights. Configures indexing via index templates. Optimizes relevance through boosting and function_score. Monitors cluster health. | |
| BI Analyst | Independently implements tasks with Elasticsearch / OpenSearch in Power BI/Tableau. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests using data validation. | |
| Data Analyst | Independently implements tasks with Elasticsearch / OpenSearch in pandas/Jupyter. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests using data validation. | |
| Data Engineer | Independently implements tasks with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch in Airflow/dbt. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests with great_expectations. | |
| LLM Engineer | Independently implements Elasticsearch/OpenSearch tasks in transformers/vLLM. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests using eval harness. | |
| NLP Engineer | Required | Independently configures Elasticsearch for NLP tasks: custom analyzers for multilingual text, mapping for NER annotations, aggregations for text analytics. Optimizes relevance via BM25 tuning. |
| Role | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Analytics Engineer | Required | Configures Elasticsearch as a search engine for the data catalog and discovery platform. Indexes dbt model metadata, table and column descriptions for full-text search by analysts. |
| Backend Developer (C#/.NET) | Required | Designs search solutions: Elastic.Clients.Elasticsearch for .NET, custom analyzers, nested documents, aggregations. Optimizes mapping and bulk indexing pipeline. Integrates with CQRS read model. |
| Backend Developer (Java/Kotlin) | Required | Designs search solutions for Java platform: custom analyzers for Russian/English, nested/parent-child documents, aggregations for analytics. Integrates via Spring Data Elasticsearch. Optimizes mapping and indexing pipeline. |
| Backend Developer (PHP) | Required | Designs search architecture: custom analyzers for Russian/English, synonym filters, fuzzy matching. Optimizes indexes: sharding strategy, reindex without downtime. Implements aggregations for analytics. |
| Backend Developer (Python) | Designs search architecture for a service. Optimizes index lifecycle management. Configures cross-cluster search. Implements autocomplete and suggest. Designs denormalized mappings for performance. | |
| BI Analyst | Required | Designs Elasticsearch/OpenSearch solutions for BI analytics: Kibana dashboard architecture, aggregation pipeline optimization, and real-time data visualization. Optimizes index patterns for time-series reporting and metric exploration. |
| Data Analyst | Required | Designs Elasticsearch/OpenSearch solutions for analytical workloads: complex aggregation queries, cross-cluster search for distributed datasets, and custom analyzers for text mining. Optimizes for analytical query patterns and large-scale data exploration. |
| Data Engineer | Required | Designs search index for data catalog: mapping, custom analyzers for metadata, nested documents for lineage. Optimizes bulk indexing pipeline for millions of catalog records. |
| LLM Engineer | Required | Designs Elasticsearch/OpenSearch solutions for production systems. Optimizes performance and scalability. Chooses between alternative approaches. Mentors the team. |
| NLP Engineer | Required | Designs Elasticsearch clusters for production NLP systems. Integrates dense vector search for semantic retrieval, optimizes performance for large text corpora with millions of documents. |
| Role | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Analytics Engineer | Required | Defines the search functionality architecture for the analytics platform: Elasticsearch for data discovery, autocomplete for metric and model names, fuzzy search by descriptions and tags in the data catalog. |
| Backend Developer (C#/.NET) | Required | Defines full-text search strategy: Elasticsearch for search vs SQL for filtering, ILM, capacity planning. Implements monitoring via Kibana. |
| Backend Developer (Java/Kotlin) | Required | Defines full-text search strategy: Elasticsearch for search vs SQL for filtering, index lifecycle management, capacity planning. Implements monitoring via Kibana and cluster health alerting. |
| Backend Developer (PHP) | Required | Defines full-text search strategy for the product: engine selection, indexing schema, synchronization pipeline with the main database. Standardizes search-as-a-service approach. |
| Backend Developer (Python) | Designs search platform for the company. Configures multi-tenant search. Optimizes cluster performance. Implements search observability. | |
| BI Analyst | Required | Defines Elasticsearch/OpenSearch architecture for BI organization: index lifecycle management, Kibana space governance, and dashboard performance standards. Establishes search query optimization guidelines and data retention policies. |
| Data Analyst | Required | Defines Elasticsearch/OpenSearch standards for analytical teams: index design conventions, query performance benchmarks, and data ingestion pipeline governance. Drives adoption of search-powered analytics and log-based data exploration. |
| Data Engineer | Required | Defines search strategy for data platform: Elasticsearch for metadata discovery, full-text search across dataset descriptions. Implements ILM for index lifecycle management. |
| LLM Engineer | Required | Defines Elasticsearch/OpenSearch architectural decisions at product level. Establishes standards. Conducts design reviews and defines technical roadmap. |
| NLP Engineer | Required | Defines Elasticsearch usage standards for the NLP team. Establishes best practices for text indexing, performance monitoring, and scaling search clusters. |
| Role | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Analytics Engineer | Required | Architects a data discovery platform based on Elasticsearch: semantic search over metadata, related model recommendations, full-text search across SQL definitions and documentation. Integrates with dbt docs and BI catalogs. |
| Backend Developer (C#/.NET) | Required | Designs organizational search platform: multi-tenant indexes, cross-cluster search, ML-based ranking. Defines indexing standards. |
| Backend Developer (Java/Kotlin) | Required | Designs organizational search platform: multi-tenant indexes, cross-cluster search, ML-based ranking. Defines indexing standards and governance for schema evolution. |
| Backend Developer (PHP) | Required | Designs search platform at organizational level. Defines scaling and fault tolerance strategy. Evaluates alternatives: Meilisearch, Typesense, OpenSearch for different use cases. |
| Backend Developer (Python) | Defines company search strategy. Evaluates Elasticsearch vs OpenSearch vs Meilisearch. Designs search at scale. | |
| BI Analyst | Required | Defines enterprise Elasticsearch/OpenSearch strategy for BI and observability. Evaluates search platform evolution and migration paths. Shapes organizational standards for search-powered analytics and real-time data exploration. |
| Data Analyst | Required | Defines enterprise search analytics strategy spanning Elasticsearch/OpenSearch and complementary tools. Evaluates search technology evolution and shapes organizational data exploration architecture. Drives adoption of semantic search and vector-powered analytics. |
| Data Engineer | Required | Designs data mesh search infrastructure: federated search across domain catalogs, ML ranking for data discovery, cross-cluster search. |
| LLM Engineer | Required | Defines Elasticsearch/OpenSearch strategy at organizational level. Evaluates new technologies and approaches. Establishes enterprise standards and reference architectures. |
| NLP Engineer | Required | Shapes enterprise search infrastructure strategy at organizational level. Defines architectural patterns for scaling text search and semantic retrieval for the NLP platform. |