Lead performance engineering initiatives for Elasticsearch, optimizing its performance and scalability in diverse environments.
Posted by employer 1 month ago
First seen on Joblaze 1 month ago
Last verified on the company career page 5 hours ago
Skills & Technologies
AI in the day-to-day
Drive automation efforts by designing and building AI-assisted optimization harnesses.
Not disclosed in this posting: years of experience, visa sponsorship.
Benefits
Joblaze summary
In the role of Principal Software Engineer on the Elasticsearch Performance team, the individual will focus on enhancing the performance and scalability of Elasticsearch through architectural and code-level optimizations. Key skills include deep expertise in Java, distributed systems, and performance profiling tools, alongside a strong background in high-performance coding. This position is ideal for seasoned engineers with a track record in performance engineering and a collaborative mindset, as they will work across teams to instill a performance-first culture.
Joblaze insights
- Listed about a month ago — first seen on Joblaze August 18, 2026. Last confirmed on Elastic's careers page October 8, 2026.
- This exact title is also open at 5 other locations at Elastic: Norway, Greece, Ireland, Romania, Spain.
- Salary band is below the typical range for Backend roles (median ~$180,000).
- Starts above 84% of 51 comparable principal backend roles that list Java we track (median $99,164 across 5 companies). See Java salary trends
- Java appears in 65.3% of 98 comparable principal backend roles; performance engineering appears in 7.1% of 98 comparable principal backend roles.
Quick facts
- Is the Principal Software Engineer - Performance Tuning - Elasticsearch role remote?
- It's hybrid — Elastic expects some on-site time in United States.
- What's the salary range?
- Elastic lists $159,800–$252,800 for this role.
- Where is the role based?
- Elastic is hiring for this position in United States.
- What's the tech stack?
- Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: AI, Elasticsearch, Java, distributed systems, performance engineering.
- 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 - Performance Tuning - Elasticsearch 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
Elasticsearch powers search, observability, and AI retrieval (RAG) for the world's largest organizations. We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch Performance team. In this role, you will lead architectural and code-level performance engineering initiatives. Your goal is to drive the continuous optimization and predictability of Elasticsearch performance, partnering with area-specific teams to unlock the full potential of our software.
What You Will Be Doing
- Owning core performance engineering initiatives from architecture to production, focusing on the delivery of high-impact optimizations. Leading the technical design, plan, and execution for major architectural and code-level performance improvements.
- Developing foundational performance models and methodologies for complex, distributed systems.
- Driving optimization strategies to ensure Elasticsearch remains performant, predictable, and scalable in diverse environments.
- Profiling and analyzing system behavior to identify bottlenecks in logging, metrics, vector search, and ES|QL.
- Ensuring robust performance benchmarks and regression detection for both stateful and stateless (Serverless) architectures.
- Collaborating across the company to embed performance-first thinking into new features from the outset.
- Drive automation efforts by designing and building AI-assisted optimization harnesses that streamline profiling, hypothesis testing, and benchmarking.
- Mentoring and coaching other engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and performance-aware development.
What You Bring
- You have deep knowledge of Java internals and JVM memory management. You understand how concurrency models work. You can write code that is high-performance, thread-safe, and lock-free. This experience includes working with large open-source and enterprise codebases.
- You have proven experience in profiling and optimizing distributed systems. This includes deep experience with benchmarking tools (e.g.,flamegraphs, JMH, Rally), identifying performance regressions, and implementing algorithmic or hardware-aware optimizations.
- You have a solid comprehension of distributed systems architecture, including partition tolerance, cluster state propagation, and scaling challenges in large-scale data stores.
- You have a proven track record of using AI or advanced tooling to accelerate optimization, debug complex performance issues, and automate benchmarking workflows.
- You possess the ability to collaborate across functions and teams, acting as a force multiplier for performance engineering across the organization.
- You possess the ability to collaborate across functions and teams and seamlessly transition between different projects, codebases, or teams based on business priorities
- You can work autonomously, drive decisions and result in a distributed team by leveraging asynchronous, direct, and transparent communication.
Bonus Points
- Experience integrating high-performance native libraries (e.g., C++, Rust, SIMD-accelerated code) into Java applications.
- Deep knowledge of modern storage engine performance, index modes, or vector search optimizations.
- Experience defining and managing Performance SLAs and success criteria for distributed systems.
- Experience working on the internals of a large-scale data store or search engine.
- Experience working on the internals of a data store or search engine.
Compensation for this role is in the form of base salary. This role does not have a variable compensation component.
The typical starting salary range for new hires in this role is listed below. In select locations (including Seattle WA, Los Angeles CA, the San Francisco Bay Area CA, and the New York City Metro Area), an alternate range may apply as specified below.
These ranges represent the lowest to highest salary we reasonably and in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range, and the ranges may be modified in the future.
An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.
Elastic believes that employees should have the opportunity to share in the value that we create together for our shareholders. Therefore, in addition to cash compensation, this role is currently eligible to participate in Elastic's stock program. Our total rewards package also includes a company-matched 401k with dollar-for-dollar matching up to 6% of eligible earnings, along with a range of other benefits offered with a holistic emphasis on employee well-being.
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