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Senior Software Engineer - Vector Search - Elasticsearch

Elastic· Platform - Elasticsearch
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Hybrid (Ireland)€85.6k - €135.5kFull-timePosted 1mo ago

About the role

Senior Software Engineer on the Elasticsearch - Search Relevance team, contributing to the direction and implementation of search features and vector search capabilities within Elasticsearch, with a focus on performance, relevance, and collaboration across a distributed team.

Responsibilities

  • Lead initiatives within Elasticsearch to produce an industry-leading search engine offering, supplying unparalleled speed and relevance in search.
  • Contribute to Elasticsearch full time, building new search features and fixing intriguing bugs, including potential new algorithms or data structures and close work with operating system and hardware considerations.
  • Work with a globally distributed team focused on vector search capabilities of Elasticsearch.
  • Be an expert on Elasticsearch search relevance and drive improvements based on analysis and instincts.
  • Collaborate with community members globally on issues and pull requests, triaging or handling them as needed.
  • Write idiomatic modern Java — Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java!

Qualifications

  • Implemented novel techniques in vector similarity on a search platform with a large user base or contributed to academic research in vector similarity information retrieval.
  • Professional experience with search or vector databases, using algorithms like HNSW, IVF, or other relevant approaches at scale.
  • Strong core Java skills, familiarity with standard data structures, concurrency constructs, and features like lambdas.
  • Autonomy to lead projects end-to-end, including technical design and coordinating with other engineers to develop components.
  • Collaborative development experience, including remote/ asynchronous collaboration across the internet.
  • Experience with data storage technologies such as Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra.
  • Proven track record of using AI to accelerate development, debugging complex systems, and optimizing code while owning outcomes.
  • Ability to collaborate across functions and teams and switch between projects/codebases as priorities change.
  • Autonomous work style with ability to drive decisions and results in a distributed team using asynchronous, direct, and transparent communication.

Skills

Required:JavaVector search / vector similaritySearch engines / databasesDistributed collaboration

Benefits

  • Competitive pay with flexible global benefits
  • Health coverage for you and your family in many locations
  • Flexible calendars with location and schedule flexibility for many roles
  • Generous vacation days
  • Match up to $2000 (or local currency equivalent) for financial donations and service
  • Up to 40 hours per year for volunteer projects
  • Minimum 16 weeks of parental leave
  • Diversity and inclusion initiatives, equitable compensation practices
  • Accommodation availability during recruitment process upon request (candidate_accessibility@elastic.co)
Last updated Sep 3, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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