Principal Software Engineer (CI/CD - Platform Engineering Productivity)

Elastic; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully paid health coverage

Flexible location & schedule

Generous vacation days

Parental leave (16 weeks)

Volunteer time off (40 hours/year)

Donations matching up to 1500 USD

Job summary

Elastic is seeking a proactive Platform Engineer to lead the CI/CD and release infrastructure platform. You will roadmap and implement scalable processes, identify bottlenecks, and drive secure, reliable deployments across multiple environments.

The role combines hands-on engineering with strategic leadership, including incident command during critical supply chain or release incidents. You will mentor teams, set architectural standards, and produce high-quality documentation to support

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in CI/CD and security in release pipelines.
• Ability to drive multi-quarter cross-org initiatives.
• Strong debugging across the full pipeline stack.

Responsibilities

• Define the roadmap and technical vision for CI/CD across the org.
• Identify bottlenecks, friction, or security risks and drive remediation.
• Design and enforce release gates for supply chain integrity and readiness.
• Direct engineers on distributed, multi-quarter projects and own outcomes.
• Ensure high-quality documentation for systems, processes, and architecture decisions.
• Serve as Incident Commander on high-severity supply chain or release incidents.

Skills

CI/CD expertise

Release engineering

Pipeline debugging

Cross-org leadership

AI in security

Hands-on CI infra

Kubernetes

GitOps/ArgoCD

Tools

Buildkite

GitHub Actions

ArgoCD

Kubernetes

Job description

• The Platform Engineering Productivity team operates the CI, CD, and Release infrastructure for the company
• We ensure developers can efficiently and safely deploy changes across our various environments and at scale
• In an age of AI, the landscape is evolving rapidly from scaling needs to, more than ever, securing our supply chain
• There are interesting challenges to tackle
• We're looking for a proactive systems thinker who delivers on business-driven projects while identifying and driving the work that keeps our infrastructure ahead before scaling and security challenges become problems
• If you're energized by work that makes every engineering team at Elastic ship faster and more securely, we'd love to hear from you
• Define the roadmap and technical vision for CI/CD, from problem identification through org-wide adoption
• Identify where CI/CD is a bottleneck, a source of friction, or a security risk before it becomes an incident, and drive the remediation rather than waiting to be assigned it
• Design and enforce release gates covering supply chain integrity, artifact provenance, and release readiness, built to scale across teams without becoming a tax on engineering velocity
• Direct engineers on your team through complex, multi-quarter projects: break down the architecture, assign the work, and own the outcome even when the execution is distributed
• Drive clear technical communication and alignment across teams, and produce high-quality documentation for systems, processes, and architectural decisions
• Serve as Incident Commander on high-severity supply chain or release incidents, and use each incident as a forcing function for structural improvements
• Raise the engineering bar across the org through code review, mentorship, design review, and by setting standards others adopt voluntarily
• Remain hands-on at the right depth: you'll review code, prototype approaches, and debug production issues, but your primary leverage at this level is through the work of others, not your own output

Benefits

• Toast to your health: Fully paid health coverage for you and your family, in many locations.
• Craft your calendar: Flexible location and schedule for most roles.
• Create space for you: Distributed by design workforce, plus generous number of vacation days each year.
• Embrace parenthood: Minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave, plus generous family formation benefits.
• Give back your time: 40 hours each year to use toward volunteering with organizations and causes you're passionate about.
• Amplify your impact - we match donations up to $1500 USD (or local currency equivalent).

• Deep expertise in CI/CD and what it takes to harden a release pipeline against supply chain attacks
• Strong debugging instincts across the full pipeline stack: you trace failures from test runner to artifact store to cluster deployment without needing a specialist for each layer
• A track record of multi-quarter, cross-org ownership: you've identified the right problem, designed the solution, and gotten organizations that didn't report to you to change how they work
• The judgment to push back on a prescribed plan when it's the wrong call, and the credibility to get alignment on a better approach
• You use AI to accelerate your own work and your team's and you understand AI's impact on supply chain security and scale
• Hands-on with CI infrastructure (Buildkite, GitHub Actions, or equivalent), GitOps/ArgoCD, and Kubernetes
• Experience directing the work of other engineers toward outcomes not just collaborating, but breaking down complex problems into executable work and holding the outcome