Join Elastic as a Software Engineer II in Search Inference

Elastic is a leading free and open search company that delivers enterprise search, observability, and security solutions. Our solutions are built on a flexible technology stack that can be deployed anywhere. From document search to infrastructure monitoring and threat detection, Elastic makes data usable in real-time at scale.

Global companies such as Barclays, Cisco, eBay, Fairfax, ING, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Mayo Clinic, NASA, The New York Times, Wikipedia, and Verizon rely on Elastic to power their mission-critical systems. Established in 2012, Elastic operates as a globally distributed company fostering a diverse and inclusive community of "Elasticians."

About the Opportunity

The Search Inference team at Elastic is dedicated to enhancing search workflows with performant, ergonomic, and cost-effective machine learning (ML) model inference. ML inference is pivotal to modern search experiences, including query understanding, semantic search, and various GenAI applications. The team's mission is to streamline ML inference in search workflows, focusing on large-scale inference capabilities for embeddings and re-ranking models, accessible across the Elasticsearch user base.

We are a collaborative group with expertise in information retrieval, natural language processing, and distributed systems. Our thought leadership extends across open code repositories, blogs, and conference presentations. We prioritize meeting customer expectations for throughput, latency, and cost.

Responsibilities

• Enhance search components by contributing to Elasticsearch and Kibana, as well as distributed machine learning infrastructure.
• Collaborate with software development engineers and site reliability engineers to ensure solutions are highly available, maintainable, scalable, and secure, meeting compliance requirements.
• Participate in a text-based, asynchronous, remote-first team environment with occasional video calls and annual conferences.
• Engage hands-on with the codebase, reviewing work and providing constructive feedback.
• Collaborate on feature development, breaking them into technical deliverables and acting as a key part of an engaged and spirited team.
• Create, audit, and fine-tune key performance indicators (KPIs) to meet goals for relevance, performance, scalability, and security.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience as a professional software developer in at least one object-oriented programming language.
• 3+ years of experience contributing to large-scale distributed systems.
• Proficiency in Docker/containerization and Kubernetes in production environments.
• Excellent practical judgment, with the ability to prioritize, collaborate, and work independently when needed.
• Knowledge of modern machine learning, NLP, and information retrieval is a plus.
• Clear and articulate written and spoken communication skills, with the ability to work well with others.
• An interest in learning new tools, languages, and workflows that drive personal and professional growth.

Our Team Style

• We value articulate, low-ego individuals who thrive in a team setting.
• We embrace diversity in all forms and welcome bold and unconventional ideas.
• We hold ourselves to high standards and take pride in delivering innovative and valuable features consistently.
• We believe in open communication, challenge, positivity, vigilance, and strive for autonomy and trust.

If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you! Please include relevant information such as your resume, GitHub profile, code samples, blog posts, writing samples, and links to personal projects.

Compensation and Benefits

Compensation for this role is based on a base salary and participation in Elastic's stock program. Our comprehensive benefits package includes:

• Competitive pay based on the work you do.
• Health coverage for you and your family in many locations.
• Flexible locations and schedules for many roles.
• Generous vacation days each year.
• Company-matched 401k up to 6% of eligible earnings.
• Matching up to $2000 for financial donations and service, with up to 40 hours per year for volunteer projects.
• Minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Elastic is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We welcome