---
title: 'Principal Software Engineer - Performance Tuning - Elasticsearch at Elastic'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-software-engineer-performance-tuning-elasticsearch-elastic-greece-acenrm5akcn0'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Principal Software Engineer - Performance Tuning - Elasticsearch at Elastic

- **Company:** Elastic
- **Location:** Greece
- **Compensation:** €73k–€116k
- **Posted:** 2026-08-18
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.elastic.co/jobs?gh_jid=8138683&gh_jid=8138683

## Job description

Elastic, the Search AI Company, enables everyone to find the answers they need in real time, using all their data, at scale — unleashing the potential of businesses and people. The Elastic Search AI Platform, used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500, brings together the precision of search and the intelligence of AI to enable everyone to accelerate the results that matter. By taking advantage of all structured and unstructured data — securing and protecting private information more effectively — Elastic’s complete, cloud-based solutions for search, security, and observability help organizations deliver on the promise of AI.

What is The Role

Elasticsearch powers search, observability, and AI retrieval (RAG) for the world's largest organizations. We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Elasticsearch Performance team. In this role, you will lead architectural and code-level performance engineering initiatives. Your goal is to drive the continuous optimization and predictability of Elasticsearch performance, partnering with area-specific teams to unlock the full potential of our software.

## What You Will Be Doing

- Owning core performance engineering initiatives from architecture to production, focusing on the delivery of high-impact optimizations. Leading the technical design, plan, and execution for major architectural and code-level performance improvements.
- Developing foundational performance models and methodologies for complex, distributed systems.
- Driving optimization strategies to ensure Elasticsearch remains performant, predictable, and scalable in diverse environments.
- Profiling and analyzing system behavior to identify bottlenecks in logging, metrics, vector search, and ES|QL.
- Ensuring robust performance benchmarks and regression detection for both stateful and stateless (Serverless) architectures.
- Collaborating across the company to embed performance-first thinking into new features from the outset.
- Drive automation efforts by designing and building AI-assisted optimization harnesses that streamline profiling, hypothesis testing, and benchmarking.
- Mentoring and coaching other engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and performance-aware development.

## What You Bring

- You have deep knowledge of Java internals and JVM memory management. You understand how concurrency models work. You can write code that is high-performance, thread-safe, and lock-free. This experience includes working with large open-source and enterprise codebases.
- You have proven experience in profiling and optimizing distributed systems. This includes deep experience with benchmarking tools (e.g.,flamegraphs, JMH, Rally), identifying performance regressions, and implementing algorithmic or hardware-aware optimizations.
- You have a solid comprehension of distributed systems architecture, including partition tolerance, cluster state propagation, and scaling challenges in large-scale data stores.
- You have a proven track record of using AI or advanced tooling to accelerate optimization, debug complex performance issues, and automate benchmarking workflows.
- You possess the ability to collaborate across functions and teams, acting as a force multiplier for performance engineering across the organization.
- You possess the ability to collaborate across functions and teams and seamlessly transition between different projects, codebases, or teams based on business priorities
- You can work autonomously, drive decisions and result in a distributed team by leveraging asynchronous, direct, and transparent communication.

Bonus Points

- Experience integrating high-performance native libraries (e.g., C++, Rust, SIMD-accelerated code) into Java applications.
- Deep knowledge of modern storage engine performance, index modes, or vector search optimizations.
- Experience defining and managing Performance SLAs and success criteria for distributed systems.
- Experience working on the internals of a large-scale data store or search engine.
- Experience working on the internals of a data store or search engine.

Compensation for this role is in the form of base salary.  This role does not have a variable compensation component.

At Elastic, our compensation philosophy aims to provide fair, competitive and transparent remuneration. Salary ranges are established based on a combination of external market benchmarks, internal pay equity considerations, and the responsibilities and complexity associated with each role. This approach helps ensure consistency across comparable roles while remaining competitive within the relevant labour markets.

The final compensation offered within the applicable range will be determined based on several objective factors, including relevant professional experience, level of skills and expertise, alignment with the role requirements, and the overall scope and complexity of the position.

The typical starting salary range for this role is: €73.300—€115.900 EUR

Additional Information - We Take Care of Our People

As a distributed company, diversity drives our identity. Whether you’re looking to launch a new career or grow an existing one, Elastic is the type of company where you can balance great work with great life. Your age is only a number. It doesn’t matter if you’re just out of college or your children are; we need you for what you can do.

We strive to have parity of benefits across regions and while regulations differ from place to place, we believe taking care of our people is the right thing to do.

- Competitive pay based on the work you do here and not your previous salary
- Health coverage for you and your family in many locations
- Ability to craft your calendar with flexible locations and schedules for many roles
- Generous number of vacation days each year
- Increase your impact - We match up to $2000 (or local currency equivalent) for financial donations and service
- Up to 40 hours each year to use toward volunteer projects you love
- Embracing parenthood with minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave

Different people approach problems differently. We need that. Elastic is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating an inclusive culture that celebrates different perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law, ordinance or regulation.

We welcome individuals with disabilities and strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all individuals. To request an accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email candidate_accessibility@elastic.co. We will reply to your request within 24 business hours of submission.

Applicants have rights under Federal Employment Laws, view posters linked below: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/fmlaen.pdf Poster; [Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ofccp/pdf/pay-transp_%20English_formattedESQA508c.pdf) Poster; https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/eppabw.pdf Poster and [Know Your Rights](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OFCCP/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/22-088_EEOC_KnowYourRights.pdf) (Poster)

Elasticsearch develops and distributes technology and information that is subject to U.S. and other countries’ export controls and licensing requirements for individuals who are located in or are nationals of the following sanctioned countries and regions: Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, or Russia, including the Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia (The Crimea region of Ukraine, The Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), The Luhansk People's Republic (LNR), Kherson or Zaporizhzhia). If you are located in or are a national of one of the listed countries or regions, an export license may be required as a condition of your employment in this role. Please note that national origin and/or nationality do not affect eligibility for employment with Elastic.

Please see [here](https://www.elastic.co/legal/applicant-privacy-statement) for our Privacy Statement.

## About Elastic

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Elastic is the Search AI company that helps organizations leverage real-time data for search, observability, and security solutions.
- **Entity Type**: Public (NYSE: ESTC)
- **Headquarters**: Mountain View, California, USA (global distributed workforce)
- **Founded**: 2012
- **Founders**: Shay Banon (creator of Elasticsearch)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Enterprise software – Search, Observability, Security (SIEM, endpoint detection, cloud security)
- **Target customers**: B2B, enterprise, mid-market, and SMB; over 50% of the Fortune 500 rely on Elastic.
- **Mission or purpose statement**: Help everyone find the answers they need in real time using all their data, at scale – powered by Search AI.

## Products & Services
- **Elasticsearch**: Distributed search and analytics engine (open source / SaaS / self-managed).
- **Kibana**: Visualization and exploration tool for Elasticsearch data.
- **Elastic Observability**: Unified observability for logs, metrics, APM, and infrastructure monitoring.
- **Elastic Security**: AI-driven SIEM, endpoint security, and threat intelligence.
- **Elastic Cloud**: Fully managed service on AWS, GCP, and Azure.
- **Elastic Agent Builder**: Tool to build context-driven AI agents within Elasticsearch.
- **Elastic Workflows**: Native automation for security and observability workflows.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Publicly traded – market cap and financials available in SEC filings (not directly cited in provided sources).
- **Key Metric**: Annual revenue (FY2025) publicly reported at approximately $1.67 billion; strong recurring revenue growth.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Public company with institutional investors; cloud partners include AWS, Google Cloud, Azure; recognized by Gartner, Forrester, IDC as a Leader.
- **Growth Signals**: Over 50% of Fortune 500 customers; named a Leader in IDC Marketscape (General-Purpose Knowledge Discovery 2025) and Forrester Wave (Cognitive Search Q4 2025); 23% improvement in MTFR with GenAI Support Assistant; InfoSec team reclaims 75% time with Security AI Assistant.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Open source foundation** (Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, Logstash) with strong community and ecosystem.
- **Unified platform** for search, observability, and security – reduces tool sprawl.
- **Distributed-by-design** architecture that scales horizontally.
- **AI-native** capabilities (Search AI, AI assistants, agent builder) integrated directly into the data platform.
- **Trusted by global enterprises** – robust security and compliance programs (Trust Center).

## Strategic Focus
- **Search AI**: Combining search with generative AI for better retrieval and answers.
- **Agentic AI**: Building reliable context-driven AI agents.
- **Cloud growth**: Expanding Elastic Cloud on major hyperscalers.
- **Security modernization**: AI-driven analytics to detect and respond faster.
- **Observability unification**: Breaking down silos between logs, metrics, and traces.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: “Distributed by design” – remote, hybrid, and in-person roles available. Emphasizes global inclusion, with employees from 40+ countries and 100+ nationalities.
- **Work environment**: Flexible work options; workspace reimbursement for remote setup (every 5 years).
- **Benefits**: Competitive compensation, equity, employee stock purchase plan, health coverage, parental leave, family formation benefits, paid time off (PTO), 40 hours volunteer time off per year, donation matching up to $2,000/year.
- **Engineering culture**: Run on own products (dogfooding); focus on open source, innovation, and AI.
- **Career growth**: Opportunities across engineering, product, sales, marketing, and more.

## Sources
1. [elastic.co/careers](https://www.elastic.co/careers)
2. [elastic.co/about](https://www.elastic.co/about)
3. [elastic.co](https://www.elastic.co/)
4. [jobs.elastic.co](https://jobs.elastic.co/)
5. [elastic.co/careers/benefits](https://www.elastic.co/careers/benefits)

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