Principal Software Engineer, Elastic
Serverless - Platform Control Plane
$159.8-303.5k
Salary varies depending on location
Open source platform powering search, observability, security, and more
Posted today
Open source platform powering search, observability, security, and more
1001+ employees
Posted today
$159.8-303.5k
Salary varies depending on location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To help turn endless data possibilities into real results with the power of Search AI.
Role
Who you are
- 8+ years building software, including setting technical direction for complex distributed systems running production at scale (Staff or Principal level, or equivalent scope)
- Deep expertise in Kubernetes and cloud-native architecture, including designing systems that orchestrate other systems
- Proficiency with Go, and hands-on work with at least one major cloud service provider (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure)
- You have operated high-availability SaaS platforms, responded to incidents, and improved reliability over time
- 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 teams and seamlessly transition between different projects, codebases, or teams based on business priorities
- You can work autonomously, drive decisions and results in a distributed team by leveraging asynchronous, direct, and transparent communication
- You communicate clearly and can influence direction across teams and levels without formal authority
Desirable
- You have built for FedRAMP or other regulated, compliance-heavy environments
- Practical knowledge of the Elastic Stack or any of its products
- You have worked with Kubernetes operators or Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK)
What the job involves
- The Control Plane Serverless team builds and operates the orchestration layer behind Elastic Cloud Serverless. Elastic Cloud Serverless is our fully managed offering, built on a stateless architecture that separates compute from storage and scales automatically with customer demand. We build the distributed services that create, configure, scale, and manage the lifecycle of Serverless projects on AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, and we own Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK). Our stack is built on Kubernetes, Go, and cloud-native architectures
- This is a Principal level role for an engineer who wants to shape where this platform goes next. Elastic is investing heavily in Serverless, building new capabilities for customers and expanding to more regions and cloud providers, while holding a high bar for reliability and security. You will set technical direction for this work, not just execute it
- We are a distributed team of skilled engineers across the world. We work asynchronously by default, write things down, share context openly, and give engineers real ownership of hard problems. You will partner closely with our tech lead, engineering manager, and product management, and with teams such as Elasticsearch and Kibana on initiatives that span the whole stack
- Day to day, you will shape technical designs and trade-off analyses, write and review code, lead the investigation of complicated failure scenarios, and balance work across security, reliability, and features. You will also participate in an on-call rotation to address operational events in a timely manner
- Set the technical direction for major initiatives across the Serverless control plane, owning designs from proposal through general availability
- Lead multi-quarter projects with dependencies across teams such as Elasticsearch and Kibana, and guide these projects through to delivery
- Design, build, and evolve the distributed systems that orchestrate and manage Serverless projects across cloud service providers
- Raise the operational bar of our services, lead complex incident investigations and reviews, and participate in the on-call rotation
- Mentor and support engineers across the team, level up our collective technical judgment, and set the standard for how we build software
- Partner with and advise product management and senior engineering stakeholders on technical trade-offs, feasibility, and roadmap direction
- Identify and champion improvements to security, stability, and cost efficiency before they become problems
Our take
Organizations are dealing with exploding data volumes increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, and the growing expectation tha ttechnology should help act on problems, not just report them. Ai is moving from experimentation into real operations, especially in security and observability where speed and context are critical. So now, both enterprises and governments are looking for simpler, shared platforms that sale easily and reduce complexity rather than add to it.
And Elastic sits at the intersection of these needs with its Search AI Platform that helps organizations turn large amounts of structured and unstructured data into clear insights and actiontions across search, security, and observability. Elastic's strength lies in its open, flexible approach, which breaks down data silos and provides a context people and AI systems need to make daster, better decisions. The goal is straightforward: help teams see what's happening, understand it quickly, and respond confidently.
Recently, the company worked with CISA to deliver a unified, cloud-based SIEM for US federal agencies, this highlights strong trust in Elastic's security and scalability. Alongside this, its AWS Agentic AI Specialization also reflects leadership in making autonomous AI system practical and reliable. Together, these milestones position Elastic well for the future, as organizations increasingly rely on shared platforms and intelligent systems to manage ris, complexity, and growth.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
8% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Jul 2016
$58m
SERIES D
Jun 2014
$70m
SERIES C
Total funding: $162m
Company benefits
- Toast to your health: Fully paid health coverage for you and your family, in many locations.
- Craft your calendar: Flexible location and schedule for most roles.
- Create space for you: Distributed by design workforce, plus generous number of vacation days each year.
- Embrace parenthood: Minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave, plus generous family formation benefits.
- Give back your time: 40 hours each year to use toward volunteering with organizations and causes you’re passionate about.
- Amplify your impact: Double your charitable giving — we match donations up to $1500 USD (or local currency equivalent).
Company HQ
Union Square, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Ashutosh Kulkarni
(CEO)Ashutosh joined Elastic in 2021 as CPO, becoming CEO in 2022. Prior to this, he was an EVP and CPO of Enterprise at McAfee, a Senior VP and GM of Web Performance and Web Security at Akamai Technologies, and a Senior VP and GM of Informatica Cloud at Informatica.
Shay Banon
(Co-Founder & CTO)Shay co-founded Elastic in 2012 and has served as the CTO since.
Navam Welihinda
(CFO)Prior to joining Elastic in 2025, Navam was the CFO at Grammarly. He also spent nearly 8 years at HashiCorp as VP of Finance and CFO and was the Head of Finance, Compose at IBM for 1 year.
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