Senior Software Developer - Storage Engine - Elasticsearch

Elastic; United States; Remote; USD 91,000 - 144,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Flexible locations and schedules

Generous vacation days

Stock program

RRSP matching

Job summary

Elastic, the Search AI Company, seeks a Senior Software Engineer for the Elasticsearch Storage Engine team. Join a globally distributed, fully remote group advancing core storage and query technology for observability workloads. You’ll design, implement, and optimize high-performance storage and query processing with Java.

Lead architectural evolution, mentor peers, and collaborate across continents to deliver scalable, efficient systems and clear architectural outcomes.

Qualifications

• Experience building high-performance, scalable storage or database systems.
• Strong focus on storage, indexing, query execution, and performance optimization.
• Proven ability to design and optimize data structures and algorithms.
• Experience with distributed, remote teams and modern collaboration tools.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development and prompt engineering concepts.

Responsibilities

• Lead architectural evolution of core storage engine components and resolve performance bottlenecks.
• Drive cross-organizational initiatives in observability solutions.
• Collaborate with globally distributed engineers focused on logs and metrics in Elasticsearch.
• Introduce best practices for clean coding and architectural clarity across the platform.
• Act as SME and mentor for Elasticsearch across engineering org.
• Review issues and PRs with domain experts; triage and resolve collaboratively.
• Write idiomatic modern Java; Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java.

Skills

Collaboration

Autonomy

AI-driven development

Prompt engineering

Time-series indexing

Java performance

Distributed systems

Communication

Tools

Elasticsearch

Solr

PostgreSQL

MongoDB

Prometheus

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

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch - Storage Engine team. This globally distributed, fully remote team of experienced engineers develops core storage and query technologies for observability workloads, including improving storage efficiency, advancing ES|QL query processing and performance, and optimizing data layouts for object storage.

This role is responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing Elasticsearch’s core storage and query engine. The ideal candidate has experience building high-performance, scalable database, search, or distributed systems, with a strong focus on storage, indexing, query execution, and performance optimization.

Our company is distributed by intention. We hire the best engineers we can find wherever they are, whoever they are. We collaborate across continents every day over email, GitHub, Zoom, and Slack. At our best, we write fast, scalable, intuitive and high-quality software. We believe that the best way to do that is to empower individual engineers, code review every change, decide big things by consensus, and strive for incremental improvements.

What You Will Be Doing

• Lead the architectural evolution of core storage engine components, continuously identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks in indexing layouts, serialization formats, and resource utilization.
• Lead cross organizational initiatives to drive and build industry-leading observability solutions.
• Work with a globally distributed team of experienced engineers focused on the logs and metrics capabilities of Elasticsearch.
• Drive continuous operational and system improvements by introducing best practices for clean coding standards, demystifying complex system behaviors, untangling complexity to bring architectural clarity across the platform.
• Serve as a subject matter expert (SME) across key areas of Elasticsearch, acting as a trusted technical advisor and mentor to the wider engineering organization.
• Work with a global community to triage, resolve, and review issues and pull requests, collaborating with domain experts as needed.
• Write idiomatic modern Java – Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java!

What You Bring

• You possess the ability to collaborate across functions and teams and seamlessly transition between different projects, codebases, or teams based on business priorities
• You work autonomously and can drive decisions and results in a distributed team by leveraging asynchronous, direct, and transparent communication.
• You have a proven track record of using AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code, while still owning the final outcomes.
• You bring a prompt-engineering mindset to know how to leverage AI agents effectively, using sound engineering judgment to validate results and recognize its limitations.
• You have implemented novel techniques to efficiently index, store, and query time-series or logs data.
• You have experience with one or more data storage technologies like Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Prometheus and have some idea how they work and why they work that way.
• You have strong core Java skills, a deep understanding of its concurrency primitives, with a proven ability to design and optimize efficient data structures and algorithms.
• You excel in a collaborative environment, actively participate in technical discussions, and work effectively across distributed teams. Because it’s the best way we know how to build software.
• You have excellent verbal and written communication skills and collaborate with respect, empathy, and professionalism in a distributed team.

Bonus Points

• You’ve built things with Elasticsearch before.
• You’ve worked with open source projects and are familiar with different styles of source control workflow and continuous integration.
• You’ve worked on data storage technology.
• You have experience designing, leading, and owning cross-functional initiatives.
• You have past working experience with database, search engine, OS, or cloud service development.

Compensation for this role is in the form of base salary. This role does not have a variable compensation component. The typical starting salary range for new hires in this role is listed below.

These ranges represent the lowest to highest salary we reasonably and in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range, and the ranges may be modified in the future.

An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.

Elastic believes that employees should have the opportunity to share in the value that we create together for our shareholders. Therefore, in addition to cash compensation, this role is currently eligible to participate in Elastic’s stock program. Our total rewards package also includes a company-matched Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) with dollar-for-dollar matching up to 6% of eligible earnings, along with a range of other benefits offered with a holistic emphasis on employee well‑being.

The typical starting salary range for this role is:

$128,300—$203,000 CAD

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)

Elasticsearch develops and distributes technology and information that is subject to U.S. and other countries’ export controls and licensing requirements for individuals who are located in or are nationals of the following sanctioned countries and regions: Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, or Russia, including the Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia (The Crimea region of Ukraine, The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), Kherson or Zaporizhzhia). If you are located in or are a national of one of the listed countries or regions, an export license may be required as a condition of your employment in this role. Please note that national origin and/or nationality do not affect eligibility for employment with Elastic.

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