Senior Software Engineer – Search Algorithms (Elasticsearch)

About the role

Elastic is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch Search Relevance team. You will help shape the technical direction of our search engine, design new features, and improve relevance and performance at scale.

Key responsibilities

• Lead initiatives to deliver an industry‑leading search engine with unmatched speed and relevance.
• Design and implement new search algorithms, data structures, and features while fixing complex bugs.
• Collaborate with a globally distributed team on vector‑search capabilities and code reviews.
• Act as a subject‑matter expert on Elasticsearch relevance, driving improvements based on data and intuition.
• Engage with the open‑source community, triage pull requests, and contribute to Lucene.
• Write clean, idiomatic modern Java code (Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java).

Required profile

• Professional experience with search or vector databases, using algorithms such as HNSW or IVF at scale.
• Strong core Java skills, including concurrency constructs and lambda expressions.
• Proven ability to work autonomously from design through delivery, guiding projects end‑to‑end.
• Comfortable collaborating remotely, giving and receiving feedback in asynchronous environments.
• Familiarity with data‑storage technologies like Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB or Cassandra.
• Track record of leveraging AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimise code.

Required skills

• Java
• Elasticsearch
• Lucene
• HNSW
• IVF
• PostgreSQL
• MongoDB
• Cassandra
• Solr

What we offer

• Competitive pay based on the work you do.
• Health coverage for you and your family in many locations.
• Flexible location and schedule options.
• Generous vacation allowance.
• Up to $2,000 matching for charitable donations.
• 40 hours per year for volunteer projects.
• Minimum 16 weeks of parental leave.