Director - IT Software Engineering

What is the role?

Elastic is looking for a Director, IT Engineering to lead a high-impact team focused on building internal, Elastic-native systems. This is not a passive IT management role; you will lead a team of engineers to replace expensive SaaS tools with custom-built solutions using the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Kibana, Elastic ML).

What You Will Be Doing

Lead Strategic Build-vs-Buy Engineering

• Partner with IT, Finance, and Engineering to identify internal SaaS tools ripe for replacement by custom Elastic-native systems.
• Own architectural oversight, build plans, and delivery of high-priority internal platforms.

Lead a High-Performing Engineering Team

• Build, mentor, and lead a focused team of software engineers.
• Manage delivery roadmaps, unblock the team, and balance engineering rigor with rapid execution.

Design & Build Elastic-Native Internal Platforms

• Platform productivity: Internal developer portals, knowledge search, and onboarding systems.
• FinOps and AI cost governance: Build Elastic ML-powered systems to track and optimize AI/Cloud spend.
• IT service management: Replace commercial ITSM/SIEM tools with Elastic Observability and Security.
• Enterprise efficiency: Develop RAG pipelines and LLM gateways to automate manual processes across Finance, HR, and Legal.

Set the Engineering Standard

• Establish architectural standards, design patterns, and engineering practices.
• Define data models, API design, and security posture for all IT platform work.

Collaborate and Validate

• Partner with Security, Platform Engineering, and Finance teams.
• Dogfood Elastic products, ensuring internal systems serve as reference architectures for customers.

What You Bring

Required Experience

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including leadership of engineering teams.
• Hands-on expertise with Elasticsearch (data modeling, query design, performance tuning).
• Proven track record of end-to-end full-stack delivery (Logstash, Kibana, React).
• Strong architectural judgment and ability to make build-vs-buy decisions.
• Excellent written communication for technical documentation and executive proposals.

Valued Experience

• Experience with Elastic ML, vector search, or ELSER.
• Background in FinOps, cloud cost management, or LLM integration (RAG, prompt engineering).
• Experience in hypergrowth or post-IPO technology environments.

What This Role Is Not

• Not a SaaS administrator or vendor manager.
• Not a pure infrastructure or DevOps role.
• Not a hands-off manager; you are expected to stay deep in architecture and code reviews.