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Product Search Ranking Engine

1 post · Nov 2025

What this trail covers

Shopify has developed and enhanced its product search engine by introducing RankFlow, a Domain-Specific Language, and TurboDSL, a high-performance C++ execution engine. This system allows data scientists to deploy ML models (transformers, neural rankers, gradient boosting algorithms) trained on billions of queries with millisecond latency at scale, combining ML innovation with C++ performance. The system supports real-time indexing, retrieval, ranking, and experimentation, with features like privacy controls, multi-language support, and accessibility. The TurboDSL engine achieved a 48% speedup in ranking feature computation. Performance visibility on every PR includes detailed component-level timings and statistical significance testing.

All Shopify trails
  1. Building world-class product search at Shopify: Where C++ excellence meets ML innovation (2025) - ShopifyThis post details the development of RankFlow, a DSL, and TurboDSL, a C++ execution engine, for Shopify's product search. RankFlow allows data scientists to write Python-like code for ML models (transformers, neural rankers, gradient boosting algorithms) that are compiled and executed at C++ speed by TurboDSL. This approach balances ML innovation with millisecond latency and scalability. The post highlights the two-phase rollout of the engine (SimScorerDSL then TurboDSL), the performance gains achieved (48% speedup), and the integration of performance visibility on every PR with detailed component-level timings and statistical significance testing.