3 months ago
Portugal (city not specified)Staff+
Responsibilities
- Lead initiatives to deliver an industry-leading vector database offering within Elasticsearch.
- Design and implement new vector search features and enhance existing vector similarity functionality.
- Fix complex bugs, improve code clarity, and occasionally develop or implement novel algorithms and data structures.
- Contribute to Elasticsearch and improve its Lucene-based search experience.
- Serve as an expert on Elasticsearch vector similarity and search relevance.
- Collaborate with globally distributed engineers and community members on issues and pull requests.
- Guide projects from technical design through implementation and work across teams and codebases as priorities change.
- Use modern Java to write scalable, idiomatic software.
Requirements
- Experience implementing novel vector similarity techniques on a large-scale search platform or advancing academic research in vector similarity information retrieval.
- Professional experience with vector similarity and vector databases, including HNSW, IVF, or comparable algorithms and libraries at scale.
- Strong core Java skills, including standard data structures, concurrency constructs, lambdas, and the standard library.
- Ability to work autonomously and lead projects from beginning to end across technical design and implementation.
- Experience collaborating on code, APIs, and technical approaches in distributed or asynchronous environments.
- Experience with data storage technologies such as Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Proven ability to use AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code while retaining ownership of outcomes.
- Ability to collaborate across functions and teams and transition between projects, codebases, or teams.
- Experience with Elasticsearch, open-source projects, source-control workflows, continuous integration, data storage technologies, or cross-functional initiatives is preferred.
Benefits
- Distributed work model with flexible locations, calendars, and schedules for many roles.
- Health coverage for employees and families in many locations.
- Generous vacation allowance.
- Employer matching of up to $2,000 or local currency equivalent for financial donations and service.
- Up to 40 hours of paid time each year for volunteer projects.
- At least 16 weeks of parental leave.
Tech Stack
Categories
About Elastic
Elastic builds the Elasticsearch-based platform for enterprise search, observability (logging, metrics, APM), and security (SIEM/endpoint). It sells subscriptions and Elastic Cloud managed services with usage-based pricing, combining open source and proprietary features through Elasticsearch and Kibana. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco, Elastic is publicly traded on the NYSE and is used by more than half of the Fortune 500.