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Principal Software Engineer - Search Infra - Elasticsearch

Elastic· Platform - Elasticsearch
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Hybrid (Portugal)€67k - €106kfull-timePosted 4w ago

About the role

Principal Software Engineer role focused on Elasticsearch core search infrastructure, including indexing, retrieval, and relevance. Leads technical vision, defines roadmaps, and collaborates across distributed teams to advance the next generation of Elasticsearch capabilities.

Responsibilities

  • Define, lead, and contribute to the evolution of core search and indexing capabilities.
  • Research advances in search infrastructure, data structures, and retrieval algorithms to build efficient foundations for users.
  • Collaborate with partners and product teams to shape long-term technical vision for search at Elastic.
  • Drive an innovative roadmap for Elasticsearch’s indexing, query execution, and relevance layers.
  • Act as an authority in several Elasticsearch domains and mentor engineers.

Qualifications

  • Experience leading technical projects in search infrastructure and distributed systems.
  • Experience mentoring expert engineers and providing technical and professional guidance.
  • Experience defining long-term technical vision for a core search or retrieval system with cross-team collaboration.
  • Hands-on experience with Elasticsearch, Lucene, or Solr.
  • Strong Java skills and familiarity with advanced data structures, concurrency, and modern features like lambdas.
  • Ability to work autonomously from concept to completion, including technical design and cross-team collaboration.
  • Experience with large-scale data or search systems (e.g., Elasticsearch, Lucene, Solr) and understanding of their architectures.
  • Excellent verbal and written communication and ability to collaborate across distributed teams.

Skills

Required:Technical leadership in search infrastructureMentoring engineersLong-term technical vision for core systems

Benefits

  • Competitive pay
  • Health coverage for you and family
  • Flexible locations and schedules
  • Generous vacation days
  • Employer donation matching up to $2000
  • Up to 40 hours/year for volunteer projects
  • Minimum 16 weeks parental leave
Last updated Sep 24, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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