Senior Java Engineer (Elasticsearch)

Elastic; Ireland; Hybrid; EUR 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully paid health coverage

Flexible location & schedule

Generous vacation days

Parental leave (16 weeks)

Job summary

Elastic seeks a Senior Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch team in Ireland. You will design and implement scalable, secure, and observable infrastructure that underpins Elasticsearch cloud, serverless, and on-prem deployments.

You will work across teams, tackle concurrency and performance challenges, and help drive automation, CI/CD, and developer productivity with tools like Buildkite, Argo CD, and OpenTelemetry.

Qualifications

• Great design skills and ability to communicate technical concepts across teams.
• Experience with low-level Java such as concurrency, parallelism, classloaders, etc.
• Proficient in core Java and standard data structures and concurrency constructs, plus modern language features.
• Experience leading large scale projects across engineering teams.
• Proven track record of using AI to accelerate development and optimize code while owning outcomes.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD systems and practices (Buildkite, Argo CD, GitOps).
• Ability to collaborate across functions and work autonomously in distributed teams.
• Willingness to dive into new issues and ask for help when needed.
• Experience crafting APIs and reasoning through trade-offs.
• Experience with observability and telemetry solutions, especially OpenTelemetry.
• Knowledge of JDK internals: modules, memory model, GC, caching, etc.
• Knowledge of Go and containers/Kubernetes.
• Knowledge of Java build tools (Gradle/Maven) with preference for Gradle.
• Experience in a platform or developer productivity team.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement new horizontally scalable features and APIs in Elasticsearch.
• Solve performance or concurrency issues and propose solutions.
• Improve operation and observability of Elasticsearch cloud systems.
• Collaborate with the ES team, Elastic users, and open source projects.
• Own operational investigations end-to-end until performance or stability issues are resolved.
• Contribute to automation and integration of agentic apps into development workflows.
• Support engineers with harder problems and lead cross-team projects.

Skills

Java concurrency

Java core

Data structures

Go language

Kubernetes

CI/CD

AI in development

Build tools (Gradle)

OpenTelemetry

JVM internals

Tools

Buildkite

Argo CD

GitOps

Job description

• We are on the lookout for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Elasticsearch team and focus on ensuring that the shared platform functionalities of Elasticsearch are easy to use, performant, maintainable, and secure
• The team’s mission is to create foundational infrastructure and shared functionality that enables engineers to develop, extend, and support Elasticsearch
• The team owns common functionality such as services, settings, and scripting, and makes Elasticsearch extensible through plugins or the Painless scripting language
• The team also makes Elasticsearch observable by providing logging and telemetry information
• We also own the orchestration of Elasticsearch in serverless, the CI/CD workflows, and enable Elasticsearch developers to deliver Elasticsearch to customers - serverless, cloud, and on-premise alike
• You will be a strong individual contributor on the team, but you will also contribute to and lead cross-team projects
• Contributing to large, impactful projects that evolve the core infrastructure that underpins Elasticsearch
• Making Elasticsearch developers more productive by identifying and developing opportunities for automation, and integrating agentic apps into development workflows
• Designing and implementing new horizontally-scalable features and APIs in Elasticsearch
• Solving difficult issues, including performance or concurrency issues, and proposing solutions
• Improving operation and observability of Elasticsearch cloud systems
• Collaborating in the open with the ES team, Elastic users, and other supporting open source projects
• Supporting our support engineers with the harder problems
• Owning operational investigations end-to-end, until performance or stability issues are successfully resolved

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: Double your charitable giving — we match donations up to $1500 USD (or local currency equivalent).

We need someone who has great design skills, who can work at a low level of abstraction but can equally drive and communicate technical concepts across a variety of collaboratorsExperience with low-level Java such as concurrency, parallelism, classloaders, etcProficient in algorithms and data structuresYou have strong skills in core Java and are conversant in the standard library of data structures and concurrency constructs, as well as newer language featuresExperience leading large scale projects across engineering teamsYou have a proven track record of using AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code, while still owning the final outcomesHands-on experience with CI/CD systems and practices (Buildkite, Argo CD, GitOps etc)You possess the ability to collaborate across functions and teams and seamlessly transition between different projects, codebases, or teams based on business prioritiesYou can work autonomously, drive decisions and results in a distributed team by leveraging asynchronous, direct, and transparent communicationYou are able to own projects from beginning to end. This covers both technical design and working with others to develop needed componentsWillingness to dive into new issues and ask for help when you need itExperience crafting APIs and the ability to reason through tradeoffsExperience with observability and telemetry solutions, particularly OpenTelemetryKnowledge of JDK internals: modules, the Java memory model, garbage collection, database load, caching techniques, etcKnowledge of GoKnowledge of containers and KubernetesKnowledge of Java build tools (Gradle, Maven, etc), with a strong preference for Gradle experienceExperience working in a platform team or developer productivity team