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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Principal Software Engineer - Query Engine, Database Internals - Elasticsearch - **Company:** Elastic - **Location:** Mountain View, CA, United States - **Salary:** $159,800.0 - $252,800.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Java (Programming Language), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, Code Review, Databases, Continuous Integration, Data Structures, Data Systems, Query Languages, Software Debugging, Elasticsearch, Github, Human-Computer Interaction, Information Retrieval, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Software Engineering, Software Systems, Apache Solr, Datadog, Data Storage Technologies, Slack, Cassandra, Data Analytics, Free and Open-Source Software, Codebase, Splunk, New Relic (SaaS), Software Version Control, Dynatrace - **Published:** September 1, 2026 - **Apply:** https://diversityjobs.com/main/sendform/8/8/28176/1/16448036?backUrl=%2Fcareer%2F16448036%2FPrincipal-Software-Engineer-I-Ii-Query-Engine-Database-Internals-Elasticsearch-California-Mountain-View ## About the Role * Experience leading technical projects in the data and enterprise architecture areas. You bring proven knowledge in building and running sophisticated technical infrastructures and engineering sound software systems. * Experience mentoring expert engineers, providing technical and professional guidance. * Experience defining a long-term technical vision for an area of a data-intensive application, working across teams and organizations to collaboratively build the technical roadmap. * Hands-on experience with search and analytics APIs, some examples may include Splunk SPL, Elasticsearch, Datadog, Dynatrace, and New Relic. * Strong skills in core Java and are conversant in the standard library of data structures and concurrency constructs, as well as newer features like lambdas. You have a strong desire to optimize and make use of the most efficient data structures and algorithms. * Working with a high level of autonomy, able to tackle projects and guide them from beginning to end. This covers both technical design and working with other engineers to develop needed components. * Experience with data storage technologies like Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra, and an understanding of how they work and why they work that way. * Excellent verbal and written communication skills. Collaborating on the internet is hard. We try to be supportive, empathetic, and trusting in all of our interactions. And we expect that from everyone too. * You have a proven track record of using AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code, while still owning the final outcomes. * 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 by leveraging asynchronous, direct, and transparent communication. Bonus Points: * You've built things with Elasticsearch before, and you have experience in the search and information retrieval space and understand the constructs and theory behind it. * Experience working with open source projects and familiar with different styles of source control workflow and continuous integration. ## Description We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch - Analytical Engine team. This expert team of engineers is responsible for building new analytics capabilities in Elasticsearch's completely new compute engine, and accessed via our new piped query language called ES|QL. This is a principal software engineering role that entails using your vast knowledge in this space in order to define, direct, and build the next generation of ES|QL capabilities. This role includes providing technical vision and direction for the customer/user interfaces and for the underlying language syntax and compute infrastructure. This role requires related past technical experience in addition to the ability to work cross-organization. Our company is distributed by intention. We hire the best engineers we can find wherever they are, whoever they are. We collaborate across continents every day over email, GitHub, Zoom, and Slack. At our best, we write fast, scalable, and intuitive software. We believe that the best way to do that is to empower individual engineers, code review every change, decide big things by consensus, and strive for incremental improvements. What You Will Be Doing: As a full-time Elasticsearch contributor, you will define, lead, and contribute to the development of data-intensive enhancements. You'll research the latest features, data structures, and algorithms in the industry to ensure we're building the right capabilities for our users. You'll work directly with our partners and product teams to understand their needs and build out a strategic vision for the longer term. You'll bring your past experience in analytics systems to help build and drive an innovative roadmap for ES|QL and the compute engine. As an authority in several areas of Elasticsearch, everyone will turn to you when they have a question about that area. You'll improve those areas based on your questions and your instincts. Our globally distributed team of expert engineers is focused on the search and query (ES|QL) analytics capabilities of Elasticsearch. This inclusive team collaborates closely with other user experience teams, crafting a friendly user interface, and with teams closer to the customer, building solutions on top of these APIs (Search, Security, Observability) ## Related Videos - [Innovating Developer Tools with AI: Insights from GitHub Next](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1268-innovating-developer-tools-with-ai-insights-from-github-next) - [Our journey with Spring Boot in a microservice architecture](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/511-our-journey-with-spring-boot-in-a-microservice-architecture) - [Stack Overflow: Community and AI](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/600-stack-overflow-community-and-ai) - [Add Location-based Searching to Site with ElasticSearch](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/77-add-location-based-searching-to-site-with-elasticsearch) - [Bringing AI Model Testing and Prompt Management to Your Codebase with GitHub Models](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1536-bringing-ai-model-testing-and-prompt-management-to-your-codebase-with-github-models) - [From Messy Queries to Scalable Systems - How Data Engineering actually works](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100203-from-messy-queries-to-scalable-systems-how-data-engineering-actually-works) ## Related Articles - [Highest Paying Tech Companies for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/220-highest-paying-tech-companies-for-developers) - [Dev Digest 120 - Apple and peers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/455-dev-digest-120-apple-and-peers) - [How We Built a Worry-Free System That Runs for 10+ Years – And What We’d Do Again](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/751-how-we-built-a-worry-free-system-that-runs-for-10-years-and-what-we-d-do-again) - [How to Answer the Interview Question: “Why Do You Want to Be a Software Engineer?”](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/392-how-to-answer-the-interview-question-why-do-you-want-to-be-a-software-engineer) - [Dev Digest 121 - AI goes offline](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/456-dev-digest-121-ai-goes-offline) - [Résumé-Driven Development: How IT trends affect the job market for software developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/59-resume-driven-development-how-it-trends-affect-the-job-market-for-software-developers)