Tech Lead, Agent Framework - Observability

Elastic; United States; On-site; USD 159,800 - 252,800; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Flexible locations

Generous vacation

Donations matching

Volunteer hours

Parental leave

Job summary

Elastic's Streams program seeks a tech lead for the Agent Framework team to own architecture, set direction, and steer evolution of the agent layer.

You will architect scalable systems, guide cross-team efforts, and partner with product management to prioritize features, while maintaining high standards and clear ADRs.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a technical lead on an agent/framework project at scale.
• Deep knowledge of observability data collection and the protocols that carry them (OTLP, Prometheus Remote Write, syslog, etc.).
• Strong Go programming expertise and experience with Go-based agent ecosystems.
• Experience designing management and control planes for distributed software, especially protocol-driven approaches like OpAMP.
• Led large multi-team technical initiatives from concept to shipped software.

Responsibilities

• Design a scalable architecture for the agent layer and drive architectural decisions.
• Provide technical guidance, conduct code reviews, and uphold engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with product management to prioritize features based on stakeholder input.
• Coordinate cross-team efforts, identify risks, and adjust plans to changing priorities.

Skills

Go

Distributed systems

Observability

OTLP

Prometheus Remote Write

Syslog

OpAMP

Architectural leadership

Tools

OpAMP tooling

Job description

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.

The typical starting salary range for new hires in this role is $159,800 — $252,800 USD. 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.

Typical starting salary range for this role in the select locations listed above is $191,900 — $303,500 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.

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.

Please see here for our Privacy Statement.