Principal Software Engineer – Performance Tuning (Elasticsearch)

About the role

Elastic is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch Performance team. You will lead architectural and code‑level performance engineering initiatives, ensuring Elasticsearch remains fast, predictable, and scalable for the world’s largest organizations.

Key responsibilities

• Own core performance engineering initiatives from design to production, delivering high‑impact optimizations.
• Develop foundational performance models and methodologies for complex, distributed systems.
• Profile and analyze system behavior to identify bottlenecks in logging, metrics, vector search, and ES|QL.
• Maintain robust performance benchmarks and regression detection for both stateful and serverless architectures.
• Drive automation by building AI‑assisted optimization harnesses for profiling, hypothesis testing, and benchmarking.
• Mentor engineers and embed performance‑first thinking across new feature development.

Required profile

• Deep knowledge of Java internals, JVM memory management, and concurrency models.
• Proven experience profiling and optimizing large, distributed systems using tools such as flamegraphs, JMH, and Rally.
• Strong understanding of distributed system architecture, partition tolerance, and scaling challenges.
• Track record of using AI or advanced tooling to accelerate optimization and automate benchmarking.
• Ability to collaborate across functions, work autonomously, and communicate transparently in a distributed team.

Required skills

• Java, JVM, thread‑safe and lock‑free programming
• Profiling tools (flamegraphs, JMH, Rally)
• Distributed systems design
• AI‑assisted optimization workflows
• C++, Rust, SIMD‑accelerated code (optional)
• Vector search and modern storage engine performance
• Performance modeling, benchmarking, and regression detection

What we offer

• Competitive base salary (€73,300 – €115,900 EUR) with transparent compensation philosophy
• Health coverage for you and your family in many locations
• Flexible work locations and schedules
• Generous vacation allowance
• Up to $2,000 matching for charitable donations
• 40 hours per year for volunteer projects
• Minimum 16 weeks of parental leave