Software Engineer

About the company

• Elastic, the Search AI Company, enables everyone to find the answers they need in real time, using all their data, at scale.
• Elasticsearch powers search, observability, and AI retrieval (RAG) for the world's largest organizations.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to core performance engineering initiatives from development to production.
• Execute technical designs and plans for architectural and code-level performance improvements.
• Implement foundational performance models and methodologies for complex, distributed systems.
• Support optimization strategies to ensure Elasticsearch remains performant, predictable, and scalable.
• Profile and analyze system behavior to identify bottlenecks in logging, metrics, vector search, and ES|QL.
• Ensure robust performance benchmarks and regression detection for stateful and stateless (Serverless) architectures.
• Collaborate with peers to apply performance-focused development practices into new features.
• Contribute to automation efforts by building AI-assisted optimization harnesses.
• Provide technical guidance and peer reviews to other engineers.

Requirements

• Deep knowledge of Java internals and JVM memory management.
• Understanding of concurrency models and ability to write high-performance, thread-safe, lock-free code.
• Experience with large open-source and enterprise codebases.
• Proven experience in profiling and optimizing distributed systems.
• Experience with benchmarking tools (e.g., JMH, Rally), identifying performance regressions, and implementing algorithmic or hardware-aware optimizations.
• Solid comprehension of distributed systems architecture, including partition tolerance, cluster state propagation, and scaling challenges.
• Track record of using AI or advanced tooling to accelerate optimization and automate benchmarking workflows.
• Ability to collaborate across functions and teams.
• Ability to work autonomously and drive decisions in a distributed team.

Conditions

• Compensation is in the form of base salary; no variable compensation component.
• Typical starting salary range: $133,100 – $210,600 USD.
• In select locations (Seattle WA, Los Angeles CA, San Francisco Bay Area CA, New York City Metro Area), alternate range: $159,900 – $252,900 USD.
• Eligible to participate in Elastic's stock program.
• Company-matched 401k with dollar-for-dollar matching up to 6% of eligible earnings.
• Range of other benefits with a holistic emphasis on employee well-being.