Senior Software Engineer - Streams - Observability

Elastic, the Search AI Company, enables everyone to find the answers they need in real time, using all their data, at scale — unleashing the potential of businesses and people. The Elastic Search AI Platform brings together the precision of search and the intelligence of AI to enable everyone to accelerate results that matter.

About the Role

The Observability Streams team at Elastic is building Elastic's unified data pipeline — the layer that connects where your data comes from to where it lands, with full control over how it's processed and routed along the way. Whether collecting metrics from cloud accounts, shipping logs from agents, or routing traces to different destinations, Streams ties it all together.

The Streams Backend team is responsible for the backend services powering this pipeline, ensuring data is routed, processed, and delivered efficiently and reliably at scale. We also own Logstash, the open-source streaming ETL tool trusted by enterprises worldwide, and are regular contributors to the OpenTelemetry Collector.

As a Senior Software Engineer on the Streams Backend team, you will help drive the design and development of new features across the Streams Backend service and Logstash, contribute to the OpenTelemetry Collector, and support users and enterprise customers.

What You Will Be Doing

• Designing and implementing new features for Logstash and its plugins in Java and JRuby.
• Designing, building, and operating core backend services for the Streams program in Golang.
• Adding new features and contributing to the Open Telemetry Collector in Golang.
• Solving hard distributed systems problems at scale.
• Maintaining, updating, and improving existing code and dependencies while ensuring automated test coverage.
• Engaging with multiple public GitHub repositories and community forums.
• Providing Pull Request reviews and guidance to your peers.
• Collaborating with other teams to drive product goals.
• Working together with the support organization to help customers, including participating in an on-call rotation.

What You Bring

• Ability to work in a remote-first, highly distributed environment with top-notch verbal and written communication.
• Proficient analytical, problem-solving, and debugging skills.
• Critical thinking, positivity, autonomy, and adaptability.
• Expertise in at least one of Java, Golang, or Ruby, with a willingness to learn and work across different codebases.
• A proven track record of using AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code, while maintaining ownership of final outcomes.

Bonus Points

• Familiarity with observability tools and concepts (tracing, metrics, logging), especially experience with or interest in OpenTelemetry.
• Hands-on experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• JRuby development experience.
• Open source software development experience.
• Knowledge of stream processing platforms (such as Kafka), database technologies (e.g., Postgres, MySQL), and network technologies (e.g., TCP, UDP, HTTP).
• Exposure to the Elastic stack.

Compensation and Benefits

• Typical starting salary range: €67.000 — €106.000 EUR
• Competitive pay and global health coverage for you and your family
• Flexible working locations and schedules
• Generous vacation days
• Charitable donation matching up to $2,000/year and up to 40 hours/year for volunteer projects
• Minimum 16 weeks of parental leave