Principal Vector Search Engineer

Elastic; Lavamünd; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Flexible locations and schedules

Generous vacation days

Volunteer time

Parental leave

Job summary

Elastic is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch - Search team. You will focus on advancing vector similarity search, shaping the design and implementation of new features, and solving challenging problems at scale.

You’ll work with a globally distributed team, pushing the boundaries of performance and relevance in search. You will collaborate across continents, contribute to core code, and bring ideas from concept to production, all while maintaining high standards in

Qualifications

• Experience with vector similarity and vector databases at scale.
• Strong Java experience and knowledge of standard data structures and concurrency.
• Ability to own projects end-to-end and guide design and implementation with peers.
• Experience collaborating asynchronously across distributed teams and open-source projects.

Responsibilities

• Lead initiatives to deliver an industry-leading vector database in Elasticsearch.
• Build new search features, fix complex bugs, and optimize algorithms for speed and relevance.
• Collaborate with a globally distributed team to improve vector search capabilities.
• Be the go-to expert on vector similarity implementation for search relevance.
• Engage with community members and triage issues and pull requests as needed.
• Write idiomatic modern Java and contribute to system design.

Skills

Vector similarity

Java

Distributed systems

Algorithm design

Open source collaboration

AI acceleration

Async collaboration

Tools

Elasticsearch

Lucene

HNSW

IVF

PostgreSQL

MongoDB

Cassandra

Job description

Elastic is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch - Search team. You will focus on advancing vector similarity search, shaping the design and implementation of new features, and solving challenging problems at scale.

You’ll work with a globally distributed team, pushing the boundaries of performance and relevance in search. You will collaborate across continents, contribute to core code, and bring ideas from concept to production, all while maintaining high standards in