Software Engineer – OpenSearch / Elasticsearch

Programmers.io; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Programmers.io in San Francisco is seeking a Software Engineer with OpenSearch/Elasticsearch to join our team. You will administer production clusters, read and modify existing application code in Java and Python, and work on distributed systems concepts such as sharding, replication, and topology.

You should have hands-on AWS experience and familiarity with Terraform/Ansible, CloudFormation, Docker and Kubernetes, and observability tools like Prometheus and Grafana.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of hands-on experience administering Elasticsearch and/or OpenSearch in production environments.
• Strong proficiency in Java and Python, reading, debugging, and modifying existing application code.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems concepts like sharding, replication, and cluster topology.
• Experience with AWS (EC2, IAM, VPC, S3, CloudWatch) and at least one other cloud provider (e.g., GCP).
• Hands-on experience with REST APIs, Query DSL, and index management (ILM/ISM).
• Familiar with CI/CD and Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation).
• Comfort with Docker/Kubernetes and monitoring/observability tools such as Prometheus or Grafana.

Skills

Java

Python

Distributed systems

REST APIs

Git workflows

Debugging

Performance tuning

Tools

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Solr/Lucene

Terraform

Ansible

CloudFormation

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

CI/CD tools

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

Software Engineer with OpenSearch/Elasticsearch:

• 6+ years of hands-on experience administering Elasticsearch and/or OpenSearch and/or Solr/Lucene in production environments
• Strong proficiency in Java and Python, with demonstrated ability to read, debug, and modify existing application code
• Solid understanding of distributed systems concepts: sharding, replication, consistency, cluster topology
• Experience with AWS services (EC2, IAM, VPC, S3, CloudWatch)
• Experience managing clusters on at least one third-party/non-AWS cloud provider (e.g., GCP)
• Hands-on experience with REST APIs, Query DSL, and index management (ILM/ISM policies)
• Practical experience using AI-assisted development tools (Claude, Copilot, or similar) to improve engineering velocity and code quality
• Experience with CI/CD tools and Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, or similar)
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Strong debugging, troubleshooting, and performance-tuning skills
• Experience with monitoring/observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch, or similar)
• Solid understanding of Git-based version control and code review workflows