Principal Java Engineer – Distributed Systems & Serverless

About the role

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join Elastic’s Elasticsearch Distributed Systems team, focusing on the Serverless offering. You will design, build and operate core components that enable Elasticsearch to scale, perform and stay resilient for customers worldwide.

Key responsibilities

• Design and implement core pieces of the next‑generation Serverless Elasticsearch platform.
• Improve components that support concurrent and consistent indexing across multiple machines.
• Maintain the cluster coordination system to ensure high performance as nodes join, leave and data moves.
• Push limits on shards, nodes and petabytes that Elasticsearch can handle.
• Investigate and resolve performance or concurrency issues.
• Support support engineers with complex problems and own end‑to‑end operational investigations.

Required profile

• Deep background in distributed systems and consensus algorithms.
• Strong expertise in core Java, data structures and concurrency constructs.
• Proven experience building large‑scale distributed systems from scratch.
• Ability to own projects from design through delivery and to manage multi‑engineer initiatives.
• Track record of using AI to accelerate development and debugging while retaining ownership of outcomes.

Required skills

• Java (core language and standard library)
• Distributed systems design
• Consensus algorithms
• Concurrency and multithreading
• Algorithms
• Lucene
• Netty
• JDK

What we offer

• Competitive base salary (€73,300 – €115,900 per year) with transparent compensation philosophy.
• Health coverage for you and your family.
• Flexible location and schedule options.
• Generous vacation allowance.
• Up to $2,000 matching for charitable donations.
• Paid parental leave (minimum 16 weeks).