Senior Software Developer (Storage Engine, Elasticsearch)

Join the Elasticsearch - Storage Engine team as a Senior Software Developer. In this fully remote role, you will design, implement, and optimize Elasticsearch's core storage and query engine. You will lead the architectural evolution of core storage engine components, drive cross-organizational initiatives, and serve as a subject matter expert across key areas of Elasticsearch. 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.

• Designing, implementing, and optimizing Elasticsearch's core storage and query engine, with a focus on performance and scalability.
• Leading the architectural evolution of core storage engine components, identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks.
• Serving as a subject matter expert across key areas of Elasticsearch, acting as a trusted technical advisor and mentor to the wider engineering organization.
• 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 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 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 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 work autonomously and can drive decisions and results in a distributed team by leveraging asynchronous, direct, and transparent communication
• 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 a proven track record of using AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code, while still owning the final outcomes
• You have excellent verbal and written communication skills and collaborate with respect, empathy, and professionalism in a distributed team
• You have implemented novel techniques to efficiently index, store, and query time-series or logs data
• You've built things with Elasticsearch before
• You've worked on data storage technology
• You've worked with open source projects and are familiar with different styles of source control workflow and continuous integration
• You have experience designing, leading, and owning cross-functional initiatives
• You have past working experience with database, search engine, OS, or cloud service development