At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the architecture for chat back-end services and mentor engineers in a collaborative environment.
- Company: Join Elastic, a leader in AI-driven technology with a focus on innovation.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, flexible work options, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Be part of a dynamic team with a culture of trust and continuous learning.
- Why this job: Shape the future of conversational AI and make a real impact in tech.
- Qualifications: 10+ years in SaaS services, expertise in Node/TypeScript, and strong communication skills.
The predicted salary is between 80000 - 100000 £ per year.
Elastic is building Agent Builder, a conversational platform that connects production agents to real customer business data in Elasticsearch. As a Principal Engineer, you will set technical direction and drive the Kibana backend architecture for the agentic platform: streaming APIs, secure tool execution, session and memory persistence, retrieval and citations contracts, and evaluation telemetry. Your influence will extend beyond a single feature, shaping service boundaries, reliability posture, and standards that other solutions build on.
What You Will Be Doing
- Own the architecture for chat back-end services (Node/TypeScript), defining service boundaries, data contracts, and scalability targets.
- Lead cross-team design reviews; author ADRs and RFCs that become reference standards for AI-chat and ingestion work.
- Build and harden event-driven pipelines that capture chat telemetry, evaluation traces, and LLM feedback loops; expose them via self-service analytics endpoints.
- Champion reliability—define error budgets, introduce testing strategy, and steer incident-response playbooks for conversational workloads.
- Mentor senior and junior engineers; grow their system-design skills and foster a high-trust, low-ego culture.
- Partner with Product, Design, and Data Science to translate ambiguous goals (e.g., "multi-step reasoning with tool calling") into incremental, testable action items.
- Represent Elastic in open-source AI communities (LangGraph/LangChain, MCP/A2A) through design proposals, blog posts, and conference talks.
What You Bring
- 10+ years building distributed, production SaaS services—at least 5 years leading large-scale Node/TypeScript or similar back-end stacks.
- Deep expertise in distributed systems fundamentals—shard routing, consensus, eventual consistency, back-pressure, and circuit-breaker patterns.
- Demonstrated success designing high-throughput, low-latency APIs (gRPC / REST / WebSocket)—including streaming responses and resumable sessions.
- Hands-on experience with observability: OpenTelemetry, log/metric pipelines, synthetic checks, and SLO dashboards.
- Exposure to LLM tooling (LangChain/LangGraph, OpenAI function calls, vector-search, RAG orchestration) and enthusiasm for advancing GenAI architectures.
- Clear, persuasive written communication—your ADRs and RFCs set the standard others emulate.
- Nice-to-have: contribution history to Kibana or other large SPAs; ability to prototype front-end dashboards when it unblocks back-end work.
If this sounds interesting, we would love to hear from you! Please include whatever info you believe is relevant: resume, GitHub profile, code samples, blog posts and writing samples, links to personal projects, etc.
Principal Software Engineer - Agent Builder - Workplace AI - Search employer: elastic
Elastic is an exceptional employer that fosters a collaborative and innovative work culture, particularly for those in the Senior Sales Ops & Strategy role within the UK Public Sector. Employees benefit from comprehensive growth opportunities, competitive compensation, and a supportive environment that encourages professional development and teamwork, making it a rewarding place to build a meaningful career.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Principal Software Engineer - Agent Builder - Workplace AI - Search
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at elastic or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to elastic.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like elastic.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like elastic that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Principal Software Engineer - Agent Builder - Workplace AI - Search
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at elastic.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at elastic and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at elastic
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If elastic uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
