Principal Software Engineer - Performance Tuning - Elasticsearch

About the Role

Elasticsearch powers search, observability, and AI retrieval (RAG) for the world's largest organizations. We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch Performance team. In this role, you will lead architectural and code-level performance engineering initiatives to drive the continuous optimization and predictability of Elasticsearch.

What You Will Be Doing

• Strategic Leadership: Own core performance engineering initiatives from architecture to production, leading technical design and execution for high-impact optimizations.
• Methodology: Develop foundational performance models and methodologies for complex, distributed systems.
• Optimization: Drive strategies to ensure Elasticsearch remains performant, predictable, and scalable across diverse environments.
• Analysis: Profile and analyze system behavior to identify bottlenecks in logging, metrics, vector search, and ES|QL.
• Benchmarking: Ensure robust performance benchmarks and regression detection for both stateful and stateless (Serverless) architectures.
• Automation: Design and build AI-assisted optimization harnesses to streamline profiling, hypothesis testing, and benchmarking.
• Mentorship: Coach other engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and performance-aware development.

What You Bring

• Java Expertise: Deep knowledge of Java internals, JVM memory management, and concurrency models. Ability to write high-performance, thread-safe, and lock-free code.
• Distributed Systems: Proven experience profiling and optimizing distributed systems, including partition tolerance, cluster state propagation, and scaling challenges.
• Tooling: Deep experience with benchmarking tools (e.g., flamegraphs, JMH, Rally) and identifying performance regressions.
• AI Integration: A track record of using AI or advanced tooling to accelerate optimization and automate benchmarking workflows.
• Collaboration: Ability to act as a force multiplier, collaborating across functions and teams to embed performance-first thinking.
• Autonomy: Ability to drive decisions and results in a distributed team environment using asynchronous communication.

Bonus Points

• Experience integrating high-performance native libraries (C++, Rust, SIMD) into Java applications.
• Deep knowledge of modern storage engine performance, index modes, or vector search optimizations.
• Experience defining and managing Performance SLAs for distributed systems.
• Background working on the internals of large-scale data stores or search engines.

Benefits & Perks

• Competitive pay with stock program eligibility.
• Company-matched 401k (up to 6%).
• Flexible locations and schedules.
• Generous annual vacation days.
• Comprehensive health coverage for you and your family.
• Financial donation matching and volunteer time off (up to 40 hours/year).
• Minimum 16 weeks of parental leave.