Sr. Software Engineer - IT Software Engineering

Elastic; United States; Remote; USD 133,000 - 211,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Flexible work locations

Generous vacation days

401k match

Volunteer hours

Parental leave

Job summary

Elastic is seeking a senior backend engineer to design and ship production systems. You will own end‑to‑end work from problem framing to deployment, emphasizing scalable APIs, data models, and secure data handling.

You will collaborate across teams, build internal tools, and evolve core building blocks like connectors, storage and search. You will work with AI coding agents and ensure rigorous testing and reviews throughout the lifecycle.

Qualifications

• Senior backend engineers with proven production experience.
• Ability to design robust APIs and data models without breaking consumers.
• Strong command of TypeScript, Python, Java or similar languages.
• Security‑first mindset when handling sensitive data and auth.
• Experience integrating with external systems and data pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Take open business problems and translate them into clear specs, data models and API contracts.
• Build internal applications to replace paid, specialized tools.
• Address data consistency, privacy, and access controls across systems.
• Design and evolve shared building blocks: connectors, storage, migrations, search and reporting.
• Work with AI coding agents, review outputs, and ensure tests gate quality.

Skills

Backend architecture

API design

TypeScript

Python

Java

Security

AI integration

Performance

Distributed systems

Code reviews

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

Could we build a better version of an expensive SaaS tool on Elasticsearch? Our new IT Software Engineering team asks that question about the software Elastic pays for, and then we build the answer. Each system helps run the company day to day and becomes a reference architecture for Elastic's own products.

We're a team of builders, and this is a hands‑on, 100% individual contributor role. Every engineer here owns their work end to end: shaping the problem, designing the system, shipping it, and keeping it healthy for years. Knowing what to build, and what not to build, matters more here than typing speed.

What this role is not:

• Not a front-end role. The user interface follows a shared kit and is the simplest part of the work.
• Not a prototype or demo role. What we ship runs in production and is maintained for years.
• Not vibe coding. We use AI to build faster, not to skip design, review or testing.
• Not SaaS administration or configuration, and not an infrastructure-only or DevOps-only role.
• Not a people-management role.

What You Will Be Doing

• Take an open business problem, decide what to build and what to leave out, and turn it into a clear spec, data model and API contracts.
• Build internal applications that replace paid, specialized tools.
• Solve the hard parts that all of these applications share:
  • reading data from several systems of record accurately and efficiently, without overloading or slowing those systems down
  • storing sensitive data so it never leaks
  • enforcing permissions on the server, so each person sees only the records and fields they are allowed to see
• Design and evolve the shared, versioned building blocks that every application is built from: data connectors, authorization, data storage and migrations, search, and reporting.
• Build with AI coding agents such as Claude Code inside a disciplined, spec‑driven process. Acceptance criteria are traced to tests, interface contracts get compatibility checks, and small slices are reviewed and proven before the next one starts. Automated quality gates decide when work is done.
• Own what you build for its whole life: review, testing, releases, production operations including on‑call, new features, maintenance and, eventually, retirement.
• Help set the team's standards for architecture, contracts, testing and observability, and feed what you learn back into Elastic's products.

What You Bring

• Senior‑level experience designing, shipping and maintaining production backend systems through failures and changing requirements, not just launching them.
• Sound judgment about what to build, what to leave out, and how to keep a system simple as its requirements change. You apply abstraction, separation of concerns, single responsibility, SOLID and common design patterns where they fit.
• Strong API and data design: clear contracts and careful data models, and the ability to change both without breaking the people who depend on them.
• Experience integrating with other systems (APIs, databases, event streams) safely and efficiently.
• Security‑first thinking about authorization and sensitive data.
• Search fundamentals. You can explain:
  • how information is indexed and how text is processed
  • how results are scored and ranked
  • when to use keyword, vector (semantic) or hybrid search
• Strong experience in TypeScript, Python, Java or a comparable language. We build in TypeScript, and engineers from other backgrounds who want to work in TypeScript are welcome.
• Comfort building with AI coding agents and reviewing their output skeptically. You hold yourself accountable for everything that ships.
• You like writing specs and recording design decisions, and you let tests and checks, not claims, decide when something is done.
• Daily, disciplined use of AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot or similar) on production work.

Bonus Points

• Hands‑on experience with Elasticsearch
• Observability: logs, metrics, traces and alerting.
• LLM features: retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, LLM gateways and evaluations.
• A degree in Computer Science or a related field.

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. In select locations (including Seattle WA, Los Angeles CA, the San Francisco Bay Area CA, and the New York City Metro Area), an alternate range may apply as specified 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 401k 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:
$133,100 — $210,600 USD

The typical starting salary range for this role in the select locations listed above is:
$159,900 — $252,900 USD

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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