Principal Software Engineer - Performance Tuning - Elasticsearch

Elastic is a company specializing in the Search AI Platform, used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500. Their platform combines search precision and AI intelligence to enable real-time data insights, supporting search, security, and observability solutions.

• Deep knowledge of Java internals, JVM memory management, concurrency models, and ability to write high-performance, thread-safe, lock-free code.
• Proven experience profiling and optimizing distributed systems, including use of benchmarking tools like flamegraphs, JMH, and Rally.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems architecture, including partition tolerance, cluster state propagation, and scaling challenges.
• Experience using AI or advanced tooling to accelerate optimization, debug performance issues, and automate benchmarking.
• Ability to collaborate effectively across functions and teams, transitioning between projects and codebases based on priorities.
• Autonomous work style with ability to drive decisions and results in a distributed team via asynchronous communication.

Nice to have:

• Experience integrating high-performance native libraries (e.g., C++, Rust, SIMD-accelerated code) into Java applications.
• Deep knowledge of modern storage engine performance, index modes, or vector search optimizations.
• Experience defining and managing Performance SLAs and success criteria for distributed systems.
• Experience working on internals of large-scale data stores or search engines.

• Own core performance engineering initiatives from architecture to production, focusing on high-impact optimizations and leading technical design and execution.
• Develop foundational performance models and methodologies for complex, distributed systems.
• Drive optimization strategies to maintain performance, predictability, and scalability in diverse environments.
• 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 architectures.
• Collaborate across teams to embed performance-first thinking into new features.
• Design and build AI-assisted optimization harnesses to automate profiling, hypothesis testing, and benchmarking.
• Mentor and coach engineers to foster technical excellence and performance-aware development.

Elastic is an equal opportunity employer committed to inclusion and diversity. Employment eligibility may be subject to export control laws for nationals or residents of Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russia, and certain Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia. Applicants have rights under applicable federal employment laws. Accommodation requests during application or recruitment process are supported.