Elasticsearch - Principal Software Engineer - Query Planning, Indexing & Performance

Elasticsearch - Principal Software Engineer - Query Planning, Indexing & Performance

elastic.io 27 March 2025

We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join our Elasticsearch - Analytical Engine team, an expert group dedicated to building new analytics capabilities within Elasticsearch's compute engine, accessible through ES|QL, our piped query language. In this role, you will leverage your expertise to define, direct, and develop the next generation of ES|QL functionalities. This includes providing technical vision for customer/user interfaces and the underlying language syntax and compute infrastructure.

Collaboration across the organization and relevant technical experience are essential. As a key contributor, you will define, lead, and contribute to the development of data-intensive enhancements, research industry-leading features, data structures, and algorithms, and collaborate with partners and product teams to understand their needs and develop a strategic vision. You will utilize your experience in analytics systems to drive an innovative roadmap for ES|QL and the compute engine.

As a subject matter expert, you will address questions and drive improvements in your areas of expertise. This team works closely with user experience teams and customer-facing teams building solutions on top of our APIs (Search, Security, Observability).

What You Will Bring:

• Experience leading technical projects in data and enterprise architecture.
• Proven knowledge in building and running sophisticated technical infrastructures and engineering sound software systems.
• Experience mentoring expert engineers, providing technical and professional guidance.
• Experience defining a long-term technical vision for a data-intensive application, working across teams to build a collaborative technical roadmap.
• Hands‑on experience with search and analytics solutions such as Splunk SPL, Elasticsearch, Datadog, Dynatrace, or New Relic.
• Strong skills in core Java, including data structures and concurrency constructs, as well as newer features like lambdas. A strong desire to optimize and use the most efficient data structures and algorithms is key.
• Ability to work with a high level of autonomy, managing projects from inception to completion, including technical design and collaboration with other engineers.
• Experience with data storage technologies like Elasticsearch, Solr, Postgre
  
  SQL, Mongo
  
  DB, or Cassandra, and an understanding of their functionality.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Bonus Points:

• Experience building with Elasticsearch and familiarity with search and information retrieval concepts.
• Experience working with open-source projects and source control workflows.
• Competitive pay
• Health coverage for you and your family
• Flexible locations and schedules for many roles
• Matching for financial donations and service (up to $2000)
• Up to 40 hours of volunteer time each year
• Minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave

Interested in this position? Please submit your resume and cover letter through the application portal.