Principal Software Engineer- Search Engineer

Principal Software Engineer - Search Engineer

The Search and AI Platform is Elsevier’s agentic data platform, which powers products such as Scopus, Science Direct, and our next-generation LLM‑powered research systems. The platform uses agentic services to interrogate our rich knowledge graphs, search and recommendation systems, and our unparalleled collection of research data to deliver insights to the scientific community so they can collaborate more effectively, work smarter, and deliver quality research more quickly.

The Search Platform Team is a core part of Elsevier’s Search and AI Platform, responsible for Elasticsearch cluster operations, index design, ranking, and content freshness across products such as Scopus and Science Direct, as well as next-generation AI‑powered and LLM‑augmented search systems. The team also owns the retrieval layer, which is currently REST‑based and is evolving toward a Graph

QL‑based API. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will act as a technical authority and multiplier across teams, shaping search architecture, defining best practices, and ensuring our Elasticsearch‑based platform is scalable, performant, and future‑proof. You will work closely with product, data science, AI, and downstream consumer teams to enable high‑quality lexical, vector, and hybrid search experiences.

• Provide technical leadership and architectural direction for large‑scale search systems built on Elasticsearch
• Drive performance optimization and scalability across search indices, queries, and retrieval services
• Ensure search systems meet security, compliance, and data governance requirements appropriate for a global research platform
• Oversee deployment and scaling strategies on Kubernetes (EKS), ensuring resilience, observability, and high availability
• Champion clean code, SOLID principles, and engineering best practices, setting standards and mentoring engineers
• Collaborate with product managers, data scientists, and other engineering teams to deliver advanced search and recommendation features
• Ensure robust monitoring and logging with New Relic and ELK, driving reliability and performance

• Proven experience as a Software Engineering Lead / Tech Lead / Principal working on search platforms or large‑scale distributed systems
• Strong expertise in Java and the Spring Boot ecosystem
• Deep hands‑on expertise with Elasticsearch, including index design, relevance tuning, and performance optimization
• An advocate of best practices for rapid development of quality software, including clean code, architectural design patterns, CI/CD
• Solid background in cloud‑native architectures with AWS and Kubernetes (EKS)
• Comfortable learning new technologies, languages, and tools on the job, to ensure that the product is not left behind in a rapidly evolving ecosystem
• Excellent communication and leadership skills, with a track record of mentoring and guiding teams
• An inclusive, positive, collaborative mindset and a desire to deliver real business value to our customers

• Experience migrating APIs from REST to Graph
  
  QL at scale
• Knowledge of cost optimization for large Elasticsearch clusters
• Experience using Python for search tooling, data analysis, or supporting services
• Experience with semantic or vector‑based search systems, including embeddings and hybrid lexical–semantic retrieval approaches
• Familiarity with search platforms or AI‑driven discovery systems

• Comprehensive Pension Plan
• Home, office, or commuting allowance
• Generous vacation entitlement and option for sabbatical leave
• Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, and Family Care leave
• Flexible working hours
• Personal Choice budget
• Internal communities and networks
• Various employee discounts
• Recruitment introduction reward
• Employee Assistance Program (global)

We know your well‑being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. These are some of the benefits we are delighted to offer.

We are an equal opportunity employer: qualified applicants are considered for and treated during employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship status, disability status, protected veteran status, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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