Principal Software Engineer Performance and AI Optimization

United States Digital Space LLC; Ireland; On-site; EUR 105,000 - 166,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage for you and family

Flexible locations and schedules

Generous vacation days

Donation matching up to $2000

Volunteer time (40 hours/year)

Parental leave (16 weeks)

Job summary

The Search AI Company is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch Performance team. You will lead architectural and code-level performance initiatives to optimize Elasticsearch performance, working with cross-functional teams to unlock the full potential of our software.

You will own core performance initiatives, develop models, and drive automation while mentoring engineers to foster technical excellence in a distributed environment.

Qualifications

• Deep knowledge of Java internals and JVM memory management.
• Experience profiling and optimizing distributed systems with flamegraphs, JMH, Rally.
• Understanding of distributed systems architecture and scaling of large data stores.
• Proven track record using AI/tools to accelerate optimization and benchmarking.
• Ability to collaborate across functions and manage multiple projects asynchronously.

Responsibilities

• Own core performance initiatives from architecture to production, delivering high-impact optimizations.
• Develop performance models for complex distributed systems.
• Drive optimization strategies for Elasticsearch performance across environments.
• Profile system behavior to identify bottlenecks in logging, metrics, vector search, and ES|QL.
• Ensure robust benchmarks and regression detection for stateful and serverless architectures.
• Collaborate across the company to embed performance-first thinking in new features.
• Drive automation with AI-assisted optimization harnesses for profiling and benchmarking.
• Mentor engineers to foster a culture of performance excellence.

Skills

Java internals

JVM memory management

Concurrency models

High-performance coding

Thread-safety

Lock-free programming

Distributed systems profiling

Benchmarking tools

AI-assisted optimization

Cross-team collaboration

Tools

Flamegraphs

JMH

Rally

AI tooling integration

C++/Rust (bonus)

Job description

The Search AI Company is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch Performance team. You will lead architectural and code-level performance initiatives to optimize Elasticsearch performance, working with cross-functional teams to unlock the full potential of our software.

You will own core performance initiatives, develop models, and drive automation while mentoring engineers to foster technical excellence in a distributed environment.