How Levels.fyi Built Scalable Search with PostgreSQL

We can't share the exact formula for our search ranking, but here are the few parameters we consider:

• Exact match (rank #1)


• Frequency of matching lexemes using ts_rank


• Similarity score using similarity


• Type of record


• Popularity of the search result


• Similarity between the result’s alias and query


• Inverse of the result’s string length

Optimizing Further

Creating so many indices and aggregating so many tables is sub-optimal. To optimize this, we employ materialized views, which create a separate disk-based entity and hence support indexing. The only downside is that we have to keep it updated.

CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW search_view AS

ᅠᅠSELECT c.name FROM company c UNION

ᅠᅠSELECT c.na... See more