Senior Software Developer (Storage Engine, Elasticsearch)

• We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch - Storage Engine team. This globally distributed, fully remote team of experienced engineers develops core storage and query technologies for observability workloads, including improving storage efficiency, advancing ES|QL query processing and performance, and optimizing data layouts for object storage
• This role is responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing Elasticsearch’s core storage and query engine. The ideal candidate has experience building high-performance, scalable database, search, or distributed systems, with a strong focus on storage, indexing, query execution, and performance optimization
• Lead the architectural evolution of core storage engine components, continuously identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks in indexing layouts, serialization formats, and resource utilization
• Lead cross organizational initiatives to drive and build industry-leading observability solutions
• Work with a globally distributed team of experienced engineers focused on the logs and metrics capabilities of Elasticsearch
• Drive continuous operational and system improvements by introducing best practices for clean coding standards, demystifying complex system behaviors, untangling complexity to bring architectural clarity across the platform
• Serve as a subject matter expert (SME) across key areas of Elasticsearch, acting as a trusted technical advisor and mentor to the wider engineering organization
• Work with a global community to triage, resolve, and review issues and pull requests, collaborating with domain experts as needed
• Write idiomatic modern Java — Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java!

Benefits

• Toast to your health: Fully paid health coverage for you and your family, in many locations.
• Craft your calendar: Flexible location and schedule for most roles.
• Create space for you: Distributed by design workforce, plus generous number of vacation days each year.
• Embrace parenthood: Minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave, plus generous family formation benefits.
• Give back your time: 40 hours each year to use toward volunteering with organizations and causes you’re passionate about.
• Amplify your impact: Double your charitable giving — we match donations up to $1500 USD (or local currency equivalent).

• You have implemented novel techniques to efficiently index, store, and query time-series or logs data
• You excel in a collaborative environment, actively participate in technical discussions, and work effectively across distributed teams. Because it’s the best way we know how to build software
• You have a proven track record of using AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code, while still owning the final outcomes
• You have experience with one or more data storage technologies like Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Prometheus and have some idea how they work and why they work that way
• You bring a prompt-engineering mindset to know how to leverage AI agents effectively, using sound engineering judgment to validate results and recognize its limitations
• You possess the ability to collaborate across functions and teams and seamlessly transition between different projects, codebases, or teams based on business priorities
• You have excellent verbal and written communication skills and collaborate with respect, empathy, and professionalism in a distributed team
• You have strong core Java skills, a deep understanding of its concurrency primitives, with a proven ability to design and optimize efficient data structures and algorithms
• You work autonomously and can drive decisions and results in a distributed team by leveraging asynchronous, direct, and transparent communication
• You’ve built things with Elasticsearch before
• You’ve worked with open source projects and are familiar with different styles of source control workflow and continuous integration
• You’ve worked on data storage technology
• You have experience designing, leading, and owning cross-functional initiatives
• You have past working experience with database, search engine, OS, or cloud service development