Principal Software Engineer, Search Infra, Elasticsearch

Elastic

Confirmed live today Low trust

Remote

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Work type: Remote
Location: Remote
Posted: 3 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live today

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How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $218k

$138k most similar roles pay here $289k

This listing doesn't post a salary. Most similar roles pay $193,825–$241,750.

Based on 240 similar postings.

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About Elastic

Elastic is the company behind Elasticsearch and the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, and Logstash). It sells search, observability, and security products built on that search engine, primarily through its Elastic Cloud managed service.

Elastic currently has 272 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $133,100–$210,600 across 93 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Principal Software Engineer, Search Infra, Elasticsearch

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Principal Software Engineer - Search Infra - Elasticsearch joins the search infrastructure team to provide technical vision and direction for core capabilities including indexing, retrieval, and relevance. This role involves researching advances in data structures and retrieval algorithms while defining the long-term roadmap for the platform's evolution. The successful candidate will serve as a subject matter expert, collaborating with product teams to build high-performance software systems and improve the search experience within Lucene. Required technical skills include core Java, advanced data structures, concurrency constructs, and familiarity with lambdas. Candidates must possess deep expertise in large-scale distributed systems and search technologies such as Elasticsearch, Lucene, or Solr. The role focuses on solving complex problems in information retrieval by optimizing query execution and building robust foundations for high-performance search infrastructure.

What does a Software Engineer earn in Remote?

Median $202482 from 350 postings across 56 companies.

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Skills

Elasticsearch Lucene Java Solr Distributed Systems Data Structures Algorithms Open Source GitHub Source Control Search Infrastructure Information Retrieval Query Execution Indexing Concurrency

What you'll do

Define, lead, and contribute to the evolution of core search and indexing capabilities.
Research advances in search infrastructure, data structures, and retrieval algorithms.
Provide technical vision and direction for Elasticsearch’s core search infrastructure.
Develop an innovative roadmap for indexing, query execution, and relevance layers.
Act as a go-to expert to improve specific domains of the search infrastructure.
Mentor expert engineers by providing both technical and professional guidance.
Drive projects from initial concept through technical design to final completion.
Ensure all code contributions comply with secure software development frameworks and privacy policies.

What we're looking for

Experience leading technical projects in search infrastructure and distributed systems.
Experience mentoring expert engineers with technical and professional guidance.
Experience defining long-term technical vision for core search or retrieval systems across teams.
Hands-on experience with search and indexing technologies such as Elasticsearch, Lucene, or Solr.
Proficiency in core Java, advanced data structures, concurrency constructs, and modern language features like lambdas.
Ability to work autonomously from concept to completion including technical design and collaboration.
Experience with large-scale data systems or distributed storage engines.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills for collaborating across distributed teams.
Experience building with Elasticsearch and understanding search theory (preferred).
Experience with open source projects and familiar with various source control workflows and CI (preferred).

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