Senior Software Engineer - Search Algorithms (Elasticsearch)

About the role

Elastic is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join its Elasticsearch - Search Relevance team, a globally distributed group of engineers focused on a robust, feature-rich search experience, including contributions to improving the search experience in Lucene. The engineer contributes to the technical direction and vision of search, designing and implementing new features, enhancing functionality and resolving bugs.

Key responsibilities

• Lead initiatives within Elasticsearch to deliver an industry-leading search engine with speed and relevance.
• Build new search features and fix bugs, keeping the code easy to understand, and invent or implement new algorithms and data structures.
• Work with a globally distributed team on the vector search capabilities of Elasticsearch.
• Identify and drive improvements in search relevance.
• Collaborate with community members worldwide on issues and pull requests, triaging and handling them.
• Write idiomatic modern Java (Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java).

Required profile

• Professional experience with search or vector databases, using HNSW, IVF or similar algorithms and libraries at scale.
• Solid core Java skills, including the standard library, data structures, concurrency and lambdas.
• High autonomy, able to own projects from start to finish and work collaboratively, giving and receiving feedback.
• Experience collaborating asynchronously over the internet in a distributed team.
• Track record of using AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems and optimize code.
• Comfortable moving between projects, codebases and teams according to business priorities.

Required skills

• Core Java
• Search or vector databases (HNSW, IVF)
• Experience with data storage technologies such as Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB or Cassandra
• Bonus: prior work with Elasticsearch, open source projects, CI/CD workflows, and leading cross-functional initiatives

What we offer

• Base salary of EUR 67,000 to 106,000, with no variable component.
• Health coverage for you and your family in many locations.
• Flexible locations and schedules for many roles.
• Generous vacation days and up to 40 hours per year for volunteer projects.
• Parental leave of at least 16 weeks.