Principal Software Engineer - Storage Engine - Elasticsearch

Elastic, the Search AI Company, enables everyone to find the answers they need in real time, using all their data, at scale — unleashing the potential of businesses and people. The Elastic Search AI Platform, used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500, brings together the precision of search and the intelligence of AI to enable everyone to accelerate the results that matter. By taking advantage of all structured and unstructured data — securing and protecting private information more effectively — Elastic’s complete, cloud-based solutions for search, security, and observability help organizations deliver on the promise of AI.

We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch - Storage Engine team. This globally distributed, fully remote team of experienced engineers develops core storage and query technologies for observability workloads, including improving storage efficiency, advancing ES|QL query processing and performance, and optimizing data layouts for object storage. This role is responsible for driving the technical vision, architecture, and design of Elasticsearch's core storage and query engine. The ideal candidate has a proven track record of designing high-performance, scalable database or search engine technologies, along with the ability to drive technical initiatives across organizations.

• Lead the architectural evolution of core storage engine components, continuously identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks in indexing layouts, serialization formats, and resource utilization.
• Lead cross organizational initiatives to drive and build industry-leading observability solutions.
• Work with a globally distributed team of experienced engineers focused on the logs and metrics capabilities of Elasticsearch.
• Drive continuous operational and system improvements by introducing best practices for clean coding standards, demystifying complex system behaviors, untangling complexity to bring architectural clarity across the platform.
• Serve as a subject matter expert (SME) across key areas of Elasticsearch, acting as a trusted technical advisor and mentor to the wider engineering organization.
• Work with a global community to triage, resolve, and review issues and pull requests, collaborating with domain experts as needed.
• Write idiomatic modern Java -- Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java!

• Ability to collaborate across functions and teams and seamlessly transition between different projects, codebases, or teams based on business priorities.
• Work autonomously and drive decisions and results in a distributed team by leveraging asynchronous, direct, and transparent communication.
• Proven track record of using AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code, while still owning the final outcomes.
• Prompt-engineering mindset to know how to leverage AI agents effectively, using sound engineering judgment to validate results and recognize its limitations.
• Implemented novel techniques to efficiently index, store, and query time-series or logs data.
• Experience with one or more data storage technologies like Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Prometheus and have some idea how they work and why they work that way.
• Strong core Java skills, a deep understanding of its concurrency primitives, with a proven ability to design and optimize efficient data structures and algorithms.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and collaborate with respect, empathy, and professionalism in a distributed team.

• Built things with Elasticsearch before.
• Worked with open source projects and familiar with different styles of source control workflow and continuous integration.
• Worked on data storage technology.
• Experience designing, leading, and owning cross-functional initiatives.
• Past working experience with database, search engine, OS, or cloud service development.

Compensation for this role is in the form of base salary. This role does not have a variable compensation component. The typical starting salary range for new hires in this role is $159,800—$252,800 USD. In select locations (including Seattle WA, Los Angeles CA, the San Francisco Bay Area CA, and the New York City Metro Area), an alternate range may apply: $191,900—$303,500 USD. In addition to cash compensation, this role is currently eligible to participate in Elastic's stock program. Our total rewards package also includes a company-matched 401k with dollar-for-dollar matching up to 6% of eligible earnings, along with a range of other benefits offered with a holistic emphasis on employee well-being.

Additional benefits include: health coverage for you and your family in many locations, flexible locations and schedules for many roles, generous number of vacation days each year, up to $2000 match for financial donations and service, up to 40 hours each year for volunteer projects, and minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave.

To apply, please use the application link provided. For accommodation requests, email candidate_accessibility@elastic.co.