3 months ago
Switzerland (city not specified)Staff+
Responsibilities
- Lead Elasticsearch initiatives focused on delivering an industry-leading vector database and high-speed, relevant search.
- Design and implement new vector search features, enhance existing vector similarity functionality, and resolve complex bugs.
- Develop algorithms and data structures and contribute to Elasticsearch and Lucene search improvements.
- Serve as an expert on Elasticsearch vector similarity implementation and search relevance.
- Collaborate with globally distributed engineers and community members on issues, pull requests, code reviews, and technical designs.
- Guide projects from inception through delivery while coordinating with engineers and cross-functional teams.
Requirements
- Demonstrated implementation of novel vector similarity techniques on a large-scale search platform or advancement of 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 Java standard-library data structures, concurrency constructs, and lambdas.
- Experience using data-storage technologies such as Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra.
- Ability to work autonomously, own technical initiatives end to end, and guide other engineers.
- Experience collaborating on software development, code reviews, APIs, and distributed or asynchronous teams.
- Strong verbal and written communication skills.
- Proven use of AI to accelerate development, debug complex systems, and optimize code while retaining ownership of outcomes.
- Bonus: Elasticsearch experience, open-source project experience, source-control workflow and continuous-integration familiarity, data-storage experience, and experience leading cross-functional initiatives.
Benefits
- Distributed work model with flexible locations and schedules for many roles.
- Health coverage for employees and families in many locations.
- Generous vacation allowance.
- Elastic matches 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.
- Benefits are designed for regional parity and vary according to local regulations.
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.