Elastic · 4 months ago
Elasticsearch - Principal Software Engineer II - Vector Search
United States
Full-time
Remote
Lead/Staff
$200K/yr - $316K/yrElastic, the Search AI Company, enables everyone to find answers in real time using their data at scale. They are seeking a Principal Software Engineer II to enhance vector similarity search functionality within Elasticsearch, focusing on the design and implementation of new features and improvements.
AnalyticsCloud ComputingOpen SourceSaaSSearch EngineSoftware
Responsibilities
Lead cross organizational initiatives to produce an industry-leading vector database offering, supplying unparalleled speed and relevance in search
Contribute to Elasticsearch full time, building new search features and fixing intriguing bugs, all while making the code easier to understand
Work with a globally distributed team of experienced engineers focused on the vector search capabilities of Elasticsearch
Be an expert on how Elasticsearch implements vector similarity in support of search relevance and everyone will turn to you when they have a question about this area
Work with community members from all over the world on issues and pull requests, sometimes triaging them and handing them off to other experts and sometimes handling them yourself
Write idiomatic modern Java -- Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java!
Qualification
Required
You have implemented novel techniques in vector similarity on a search platform with a large user base or progressed the field of academic research in vector similarity information retrieval
You've made broad industry-wide contributions to search relevance or related topics in information retrieval
Professional experience with vector similarity and vector databases, and you used HNSW, IVF, or other relevant algorithms and libraries on search platforms at scale
You have strong skills in core Java and are conversant in the standard library of data structures and concurrency constructs, as well as other features like lambdas
You work with a high level of autonomy, and are able to take on projects and guide them from beginning to end. This covers both technical design and working with other engineers to develop needed components
You're comfortable developing collaboratively. Giving and receiving feedback on code and approaches and APIs is hard! Bonus points if you've collaborated over the internet because that's harder. Double bonus points for asynchronous collaboration over the internet. That's even harder, but we do it anyway because it's the best way we know how to build software
You've used several data storage technologies like Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra and have some idea how they work and why they work that way
You have excellent verbal and written communication skills. Like we said, collaborating on the internet is hard. We try to be respectful, empathetic, and trusting in all of our interactions. And we'd expect that from you too
Preferred
You've built things with Elasticsearch before
You've worked with open source projects and are familiar with different styles of source control workflow and continuous integration
Experience with data storage technology
You have experience designing, leading and owning cross-functional initiatives
Benefits
Health coverage for you and your family in many locations
Ability to craft your calendar with flexible locations and schedules for many roles
Generous number of vacation days each year
Increase your impact - We match up to $2000 (or local currency equivalent) for financial donations and service
Up to 40 hours each year to use toward volunteer projects you love
Embracing parenthood with minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave
Company
Elastic
Elastic builds software to make data usable in real time and at scale for search, logging, security, and analytics use cases.
Founded in 2012
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Elastic has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2024 (1)
2022 (2)
2021 (1)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$162MKey Investors
New Enterprise AssociatesIndex VenturesBenchmark
2018-10-04IPO
2018-05-03Secondary Market
2016-07-01Series D· $58M
Leadership Team
Ashutosh Kulkarni
CEO
Shay Banon
Chief Technology Officer
Recent News
2025-12-29
2025-12-10
Company data provided by crunchbase