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Principal Software Engineer I - CI/CD - Platform Engineering Productivity

Lead the CI/CD initiatives to enhance engineering productivity and security at Elastic.

Location
United Kingdom
Compensation
Not disclosed
Level
principal
Type
full time

Posted by employer 2 days ago

First seen on Joblaze 16 hours ago

Last verified on the company career page 16 hours ago

What you'll build

  • Define the roadmap and technical vision for CI/CD
  • Identify and remediate CI/CD bottlenecks
  • Design and enforce release gates
  • Direct engineers through complex projects
  • Serve as Incident Commander on high-severity incidents

Must have

  • Deep expertise in CI/CD
  • Strong debugging instincts across the full pipeline stack
  • Hands-on with CI infrastructure
  • Experience directing the work of other engineers

AI in the day-to-day

You use AI to accelerate your own work and your team's and you understand AI's impact on supply chain security and scale.

Not disclosed in this posting: compensation, years of experience, work arrangement, visa sponsorship.

Benefits

Volunteer Time Off Flexible Work Schedule Generous Vacation Days Health Insurance Parental Leave

Joblaze summary

In this role, the Principal Software Engineer focuses on enhancing the CI/CD and release infrastructure to streamline deployment processes across Elastic's platforms. Key skills include deep expertise in CI/CD practices, hands-on experience with tools like Buildkite and Kubernetes, and a strong ability to debug complex systems. This position is ideal for a senior engineer with a proven track record of leading cross-organizational projects and driving technical improvements. The team operates in a dynamic environment where proactive problem-solving and collaboration are essential.

Joblaze insights

  • Listed today — first seen on Joblaze October 11, 2026. Last confirmed on Elastic's careers page October 11, 2026.
  • This exact title is also open at 5 other locations at Elastic: Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, United States.

Quick facts

What's the tech stack?
Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: ArgoCD, Buildkite, CI/CD, GitHub Actions, GitOps, Kubernetes.
What seniority level is this role?
Elastic targets principal-level candidates for this position.
Is this full-time or contract?
Full-time for this Principal Software Engineer I - CI/CD - Platform Engineering Productivity role at Elastic.

From the original posting

Elastic, the Search AI Company, enables everyone to find the answers they need in real time, using all their data, at scale — unleashing the potential of businesses and people. The Elastic Search AI Platform, used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500, brings together the precision of search and the intelligence of AI to enable everyone to accelerate the results that matter. By taking advantage of all structured and unstructured data — securing and protecting private information more effectively — Elastic’s complete, cloud-based solutions for search, security, and observability help organizations deliver on the promise of AI.

What Is The Role :

The Platform Engineering Productivity team operates the CI, CD, and Release infrastructure for the company. We ensure developers can efficiently and safely deploy changes across our various environments and at scale. In an age of AI, the landscape is evolving rapidly from scaling needs to, more than ever, securing our supply chain. There are interesting challenges to tackle.
We're looking for a proactive systems thinker who delivers on business-driven projects while identifying and driving the work that keeps our infrastructure ahead before scaling and security challenges become problems. If you're energized by work that makes every engineering team at Elastic ship faster and more securely, we'd love to hear from you.

What You Will Be Doing :

  • Define the roadmap and technical vision for CI/CD, from problem identification through org-wide adoption.
  • Identify where CI/CD is a bottleneck, a source of friction, or a security risk before it becomes an incident, and drive the remediation rather than waiting to be assigned it.
  • Design and enforce release gates covering supply chain integrity, artifact provenance, and release readiness, built to scale across teams without becoming a tax on engineering velocity.
  • Direct engineers on your team through complex, multi-quarter projects: break down the architecture, assign the work, and own the outcome even when the execution is distributed.
  • Drive clear technical communication and alignment across teams, and produce high-quality documentation for systems, processes, and architectural decisions.
  • Serve as Incident Commander on high-severity supply chain or release incidents, and use each incident as a forcing function for structural improvements.
  • Raise the engineering bar across the org through code review, mentorship, design review, and by setting standards others adopt voluntarily.
  • Remain hands-on at the right depth: you'll review code, prototype approaches, and debug production issues, but your primary leverage at this level is through the work of others, not your own output.

What You Bring :

  • Deep expertise in CI/CD and what it takes to harden a release pipeline against supply chain attacks.
  • Strong debugging instincts across the full pipeline stack: you trace failures from test runner to artifact store to cluster deployment without needing a specialist for each layer.
  • Hands-on with CI infrastructure (Buildkite, GitHub Actions, or equivalent), GitOps/ArgoCD, and Kubernetes.
  • You use AI to accelerate your own work and your team's and you understand AI's impact on supply chain security and scale.
  • A track record of multi-quarter, cross-org ownership: you've identified the right problem, designed the solution, and gotten organizations that didn't report to you to change how they work.
  • The judgment to push back on a prescribed plan when it's the wrong call, and the credibility to get alignment on a better approach.
  • Experience directing the work of other engineers toward outcomes not just collaborating, but breaking down complex problems into executable work and holding the outcome.

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