← All roles

Principal Software Engineer - Search Infra - Elasticsearch

Elastic· Platform - Elasticsearch
Apply on company site
Hybrid (Norway)NOK 949.5k - NOK 1502kfull-timePosted 4w ago

About the role

Principal Software Engineer role focusing on core search infrastructure for Elasticsearch, leading technical vision and roadmaps for indexing, retrieval, and relevance, with deep expertise in search internals and cross-team collaboration within a globally distributed team.

Responsibilities

  • Define, lead, and contribute to the evolution of core search and indexing capabilities for Elasticsearch.
  • 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 as a domain expert.

Qualifications

  • Experience leading technical projects in the search infrastructure and distributed systems space.
  • Proven ability to build and operate sophisticated search platforms and robust, high-performance software systems.
  • Experience mentoring expert engineers, providing technical and professional guidance.
  • Experience defining long-term technical vision for a core search or retrieval system and shaping technical roadmap across teams.
  • Hands-on experience with Elasticsearch, Lucene, or Solr.
  • Strong Java skills and familiarity with advanced data structures, concurrency constructs, and modern language 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 (Elasticsearch, Lucene, Solr) or distributed storage engines.
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills and ability to collaborate across distributed teams.

Skills

Required:Experience in leading technical projects in search infrastructureMentoring engineersLong-term technical vision for core search/retrieval systemsElasticsearch, Lucene, or SolrCore Java and concurrency

Benefits

  • Competitive pay based on the work you do here and not your previous salary
  • Health coverage for you and your family in many locations
  • Flexible locations and schedules for many roles
  • Generous number of vacation days each year
  • Up to $2000 USD (or local currency equivalent) matched for financial donations and service
  • Up to 40 hours per year toward volunteer projects
  • Minimum of 16 weeks parental leave
Last updated Sep 24, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
Elastic logo

About Elastic

The open source platform that powers search, observability, security, and more ...

Power insights and outcomes with The Elastic Search AI Platform. See into your data and find answers that matter with enterprise solutions designed to help you accelerate time to insight.

searchobservabilitysecurityAIenterprise solutionsvector database
Company profileWebsite

More open roles at Elastic