Principal Performance Engineer - Distributed Systems

Referral Board; Ireland; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Flexible locations

Generous vacation

Parental leave

Job summary

Elastic is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for Elasticsearch Performance. You will lead architectural and code-level performance initiatives, driving optimizations across distributed systems to keep Elasticsearch fast and scalable. You will mentor engineers and shape performance-first culture.

Role requires deep Java/JVM expertise, strong profiling skills, and the ability to collaborate across teams to implement automated benchmarking and AI-assisted optimization.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated expertise in high-performance Java applications.
• Experience profiling distributed systems and identifying bottlenecks.

Responsibilities

• Own performance initiatives from architecture to production.
• Develop performance models for distributed systems.
• Drive optimizations for scalability and predictability of Elasticsearch.

Skills

Java performance

JVM memory management

Profiling distributed systems

AI-assisted optimization

Cross-team collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Math/Eng

Tools

JMH

Flamegraphs

Rally

Job description

Elastic is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for Elasticsearch Performance. You will lead architectural and code-level performance initiatives, driving optimizations across distributed systems to keep Elasticsearch fast and scalable. You will mentor engineers and shape performance-first culture.

Role requires deep Java/JVM expertise, strong profiling skills, and the ability to collaborate across teams to implement automated benchmarking and AI-assisted optimization.