Principal Software Engineer II - Analytical Engine, Query Languages

Elastic is a free and open search company that powers enterprise search, observability, and security solutions built on one technology stack that can be deployed anywhere. From finding documents to monitoring infrastructure to hunting for threats, Elastic makes data usable in real-time and at scale. Thousands of organizations worldwide use Elastic to power mission-critical systems. Founded in 2012, Elastic is a distributed company with Elasticians around the globe.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch - Analytical Engine team. This expert team of engineers is responsible for building new analytics capabilities in Elasticsearch’s completely new compute engine, accessed via our new piped query language called ES|QL. This role entails using your vast knowledge in this space to define, direct, and build the next generation of ES|QL capabilities. It includes providing technical vision and direction for the customer/user interfaces and for the underlying language syntax and compute infrastructure. This role requires related past technical experience in addition to the ability to work cross-organization.

Our company is distributed by intention. We hire the best engineers we can find wherever they are, whoever they are. We collaborate across continents every day over email, GitHub, Zoom, and Slack. At our best, we write fast, scalable and intuitive software. We believe that the best way to do that is to empower individual engineers, code review every change, decide big things by consensus, and strive for incremental improvements.

What You Will Be Doing

• As a full-time Elasticsearch contributor, you will define, lead, and contribute to the development of data-intensive enhancements.
• You’ll research the latest features, data-structures, and algorithms in the industry to ensure we’re building the right capabilities for our users.
• You’ll work directly with our partners and product teams to understand their needs and build out a strategic vision for the longer term.
• You’ll bring your past experience in analytics systems to help build and drive an innovative roadmap for ES|QL and the compute engine.
• As an authority in several areas of Elasticsearch, everyone will turn to you when they have a question about that area.
• You’ll improve those areas based on your questions and your instincts.
• Our globally distributed team of expert engineers is focused on the search and query (ES|QL) analytics capabilities of Elasticsearch.
• This team collaborates closely with other user experience teams crafting a friendly user interface, and with teams closer to the customer building solutions on top of these APIs (Search, Security, Observability).
• Finally, we write idiomatic modern Java -- Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java!

What You Bring Along

• Experience leading technical projects in the data and enterprise architecture areas.
• Proven knowledge in building and running sophisticated technical infrastructures and engineering sound software systems.
• Experience mentoring expert engineers, providing technical and professional guidance.
• Experience defining a long-term technical vision for an area of a data-intensive application, working across teams and organizations to collaboratively build the technical roadmap.
• Hands-on experience with search and analytics solutions, such as Splunk SPL, Elasticsearch, Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic.
• Strong skills in core Java and conversant in the standard library of data structures and concurrency constructs, as well as newer features like lambdas.
• Ability to work with a high level of autonomy, tackling projects and guiding them from beginning to end.
• Experience with data storage technologies like Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra and an understanding of how they work and why they work that way.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Bonus Points

• You’ve built things with Elasticsearch before, and you have experience in the search and information retrieval space and understand the constructs and theory behind it.
• Experience working with open source projects and familiar with different styles of source control workflow and continuous integration.

Additional Information - We Take Care of Our People

As a distributed company, diversity drives our identity. Whether you’re looking to launch a new career or grow an existing one, Elastic is the type of company where you can balance great work with great life. Your age is only a number. It doesn’t matter if you’re just out of college or your children are; we need you for what you can do. We strive to have parity of benefits across regions and while regulations differ from place to place, we believe taking care of our people is the right thing to do.

• Competitive pay based on the work you do here and not your previous salary.
• 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 a minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave.