Senior Software Engineer - Vector Search - Elasticsearch

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.

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch - Search Relevance team. This globally-distributed team of expert engineers focuses on delivering a robust and feature-rich search experience, including contributing to improving the search experience in Lucene.

What You Will Be Doing

• 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, all while making the code easier to understand.
• Work with a globally distributed team of experienced engineers focused on the vector search capabilities of Elasticsearch.
• Be an expert on Elasticsearch search relevance.
• Work with community members from all over the world on issues and pull requests.
• Write idiomatic modern Java -- Elasticsearch is 99.8% Java!

What You Bring

• You have implemented novel techniques in vector similarity on a search platform with a large user base or progressed the field of academic research in vector similarity information retrieval.
• Professional experience with search or vector databases, and you used HNSW, IVF, or other relevant algorithms and libraries on search platforms at scale.
• You have solid skills in core Java and are conversant in the standard library of data structures and concurrency constructs.
• You work with a high level of autonomy and are able to take on projects and guide them from beginning to end.
• You're comfortable developing collaboratively.
• You've used several data storage technologies like Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra.
• You have a proven track record of using AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code.
• You possess the ability to collaborate across functions and teams and seamlessly transition between different projects, codebases, or teams based on business priorities.
• You work autonomously and can drive decisions and results in a distributed team.

Bonus Points

• You've built things with Elasticsearch before.
• You've worked with open source projects and are familiar with different styles of source control workflow and continuous integration.
• Experience with data storage technology.
• You have experience designing, leading, and owning cross-functional initiatives.

The typical starting salary range for this role is: $133,100-$210,600 USD The typical starting salary range for this role in select locations is: $159,900-$252,900 USD