Tech Lead, Agent Framework - Observability

Elastic; Ireland; On-site; EUR 102,700 - 162,500; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Flexible locations and schedules

Vacation days

Donation matching (up to 2000)

Volunteer hours (40h/year)

Parental leave (16 weeks)

Job summary

Elastic is seeking a tech lead for the Agent Framework to own architecture and set technical direction across the Streams model. You will guide the agent layer, drive architectural decisions, and lead a distributed engineering team to deliver high-quality software.

You will collaborate with stakeholders and product management, conduct reviews, and mentor engineers to adopt best practices. This role emphasizes design docs, ADRs, and measurable impact across multiple teams.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a technical lead or principal engineer on a large agent/framework project.
• Strong knowledge of observability data collection and related protocols (OTLP, Prometheus, syslog).
• Solid background in Go and distributed deployments at scale.
• Experience designing management and control planes for distributed software.

Responsibilities

• Design a scalable architecture for the agent layer and guide technology choices.
• Provide technical guidance and conduct code reviews to raise quality.
• Gather requirements from stakeholders and align features with product goals.
• Lead cross-team collaboration and manage evolving project plans.

Skills

Technical leadership

Agent framework

Distributed systems

Observability

Go programming

OpAMP protocol

Architectural design

Documentation (ADRs)

Cross-team collaboration

Tools

Kubernetes

OpenTelemetry

Terraform

CloudFormation

OTLP

Prometheus

OpenTelemetry Collector

Job description

Elastic, the Search AI Company, enables everyone to find the answers they need in real time, using all their data, at scale — unleashing the potential of businesses and people. The Elastic Search AI Platform, used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500, brings together the precision of search and the intelligence of AI to enable everyone to accelerate the results that matter. By taking advantage of all structured and unstructured data — securing and protecting private information more effectively — Elastic’s complete, cloud-based solutions for search, security, and observability help organizations deliver on the promise of AI.

What is The Role

Elastic's Streams program is the unified platform for getting data into Elasticsearch from edge collection all the way through cloud processing. At the edge, Elastic Agent and Beats are how data leaves customer infrastructure.

This role is the tech lead position for the Agent Framework team: you will own the architecture, set the technical direction, and be the primary decision-maker for how Elastic's agent layer evolves to support the Streams model.

What You Will Be Doing

• Design a scalable and capable architecture for the agent layer. Evaluate and implement new technologies to boost system performance. Conduct reviews of existing architecture to identify areas for improvement and lead architectural discussions to drive decision-making.
• Provide technical guidance and support to team members while fostering a culture of continuous learning. Conduct code reviews and offer constructive feedback to improve team performance. Lead by example, demonstrating engineering best practices and setting high standards for quality.
• Engage with stakeholders to gather their requirements and expectations appropriately. Collaborate with the product management team to prioritize features based on the input gathered from stakeholders.
• Facilitate collaboration across teams by organizing meetings and coordinating efforts. Identify potential risks that could hinder project success and take initiative-taking measures to mitigate them. Adjust project plans in response to changing priorities or feedback from stakeholders to ensure alignment.

What You Bring

• Proven experience as a technical lead or principal engineer on an agent, daemon, or systems-level software project at scale managing distributed deployments, versioning, and backward compatibility.
• Deep knowledge of observability data collection: metrics, logs, traces, and the protocols that carry them (OTLP, Prometheus Remote Write, syslog, etc.).
• Solid background in Go (Elastic Agent and Beats are primarily Go).
• Experience designing management and control planes for distributed software particularly protocol-driven approaches like OpAMP.
• Track record of leading large, multi-team technical initiatives from ambiguous design space to shipped software.
• Proven ability to seamlessly transition between different projects and codebases, and work with different teams based on dynamic business priorities.
• Comfortable with the full arc of a technical decision: writing the design doc, socializing it across stakeholders, building consensus, and holding the line on what matters.
• Great written communication you produce design docs and ADRs that others trust and reference long after the decision is made

Bonus Points

• Direct experience with Elastic Agent, Fleet, Beats, or OpenTelemetry collector internals.
• Experience with OpenTelemetry collector configuration, OTLP transport, or upstream contribution.
• Experience with cross platform testing and developer productivity spanning all of Linux, Windows, MacOS, containers, and Kubernetes.
• Knowledge about pipeline execution models and processing languages (Streamlang, Logstash, Fluent, etc.).
• Experience with CloudFormation, Terraform, or other infrastructure-as-code tooling in the context of agent deployment.
• Contributions to open source projects in the observability or agent ecosystem.
• Comfort working async-first across a globally distributed team.

Compensation for this role is in the form of base salary. This role does not have a variable compensation component.

At Elastic, our compensation philosophy aims to provide fair, competitive and transparent remuneration. Salary ranges are established based on a combination of external market benchmarks, internal pay equity considerations, and the responsibilities and complexity associated with each role. This approach helps ensure consistency across comparable roles while remaining competitive within the relevant labour markets.

The final compensation offered within the applicable range will be determined based on several objective factors, including relevant professional experience, level of skills and expertise, alignment with the role requirements, and the overall scope and complexity of the position.

The typical starting salary range for this role is: €102.700 — €162.500 EUR

Additional Information - We Take Care of Our People

As a distributed company, diversity drives our identity. Whether you’re looking to launch a new career or grow an existing one, Elastic is the type of company where you can balance great work with great life. Your age is only a number. It doesn’t matter if you’re just out of college or your children are; we need you for what you can do.

We strive to have parity of benefits across regions and while regulations differ from place to place, we believe taking care of our people is the right thing to do.

• Competitive pay based on the work you do here and not your previous salary
• Health coverage for you and your family in many locations
• Ability to craft your calendar with flexible locations and schedules for many roles
• Generous number of vacation days each year
• Increase your impact - We match up to 2000 (or local currency equivalent) for financial donations and service
• Up to 40 hours each year to use toward volunteer projects you love
• Embracing parenthood with minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave

Different people approach problems differently. We need that. Elastic is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating an inclusive culture that celebrates different perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law, ordinance or regulation.

We welcome individuals with disabilities and strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all individuals. To request an accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email [e-mail]. We will reply to your request within 24 business hours of submission.

Applicants have rights under Federal Employment Laws, view posters linked below: Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Poster; Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision Poster; Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) Poster and Know Your Rights (Poster)

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