Principal Software Engineer - Search Algorithms - Elasticsearch

Elastic
Romania
Workplace: OnsiteFull timeRON 326,400 - 516,400 annuallyFunction: Software EngineeringSkills: ["Collaboration","Communication","Problem-solving","Code review","Ownership"]

Lead initiatives in Elasticsearch to build and evolve an industry-leading vector database experience, focusing on vector similarity search. You’ll design and implement new vector search features, improve existing functionality, and resolve complex bugs—often inventing algorithms or data structures. Work with a globally distributed team, mentor through code reviews, contribute to Lucene search improvements, and engage the community via issues and pull requests.

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FursaFursa
Elastic
Elastic
2 days ago

Principal Software Engineer - Search Algorithms - Elasticsearch

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Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 5 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Lead initiatives in Elasticsearch to build and evolve an industry-leading vector database experience, focusing on vector similarity search. You’ll design and implement new vector search features, improve existing functionality, and resolve complex bugs—often inventing algorithms or data structures. Work with a globally distributed team, mentor through code reviews, contribute to Lucene search improvements, and engage the community via issues and pull requests.
Location: Romania
Workplace: Onsite
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Software Engineering
Seniority: Mid level

Key Responsibilities

  • •Lead initiatives within Elasticsearch to produce an industry-leading vector database offering with speed and relevance.
  • •Build and enhance vector search functionality in Elasticsearch, including fixing complex bugs and making the code easier to understand.
  • •Design and implement vector search features, sometimes inventing new algorithms or data structures and working close to OS/hardware when needed.
  • •Provide deep expertise in how Elasticsearch implements vector similarity in support of search relevance and drive improvements.
  • •Collaborate with a globally distributed engineering team and contribute to community issues and pull requests, sometimes triaging and sometimes handling directly.

Pay and Benefits

Salary: RON 326,400 - 516,400 annually
Perks:Health InsuranceParental Leave

Key Requirements

  • •Professional experience with vector similarity and vector databases at search-platform scale, including using algorithms/libraries such as HNSW or IVF.
  • •Strong core Java skills, including data structures, concurrency constructs, and language features like lambdas.
  • •Ability to take projects end-to-end with technical design ownership and collaboration with other engineers to deliver required components.
  • •Comfort with distributed collaboration and giving/receiving feedback on code, approaches, and APIs.
  • •Hands-on experience with data storage technologies such as Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra and understanding how/why they work.
Experience:Vector databasesSearchDistributed systemsOpen source
Skills:CollaborationCommunicationProblem-solvingCode reviewOwnership
Languages:English
Tech Stack:JavaElasticsearchLuceneHNSWIVFVector similarityVector databasesSolrPostgreSQLMongoDBCassandraGitHubZoomSlackData structuresConcurrencyLambdasAPIsAsynchronous communication

Company Brief

Elastic
Builds the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, Logstash) and provides search, observability, and security solutions that enable organizations to search, analyze, and protect data in real time across applications, infrastructure, and enterprises.
Industry: Data Infrastructure
Company Size: Enterprise (1,001+ employees)
Revenue: USD 1B+
Growth: Public Company
Valuation: Public Company (Market Cap in USD)
Funding: IPO / Publicly Listed
Headquarters: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Founded: 2012
WebsiteLinkedIn