Senior Java Software Engineer - Search Inference - Platform

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 We are on the lookout for a Senior Java Developer to join our Elasticsearch team and drive our work on the Inference API in Elasticsearch. The Elasticsearch Inference API is the integration layer between Elasticsearch and external machine learning services including Elastic's own Elastic Inference Service (EIS), third-party providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Cohere, Google), and self-hosted models. It powers features like semantic search, reranking, and generative AI across Elastic Cloud and in hosted environments. You'll maintain and develop the plugin framework and REST API with your work spanning protocol design, streaming, async execution, billing integration, and with a tight collaboration with the wider inference team and the Kibana team. What You Will Be Doing • Build and maintain integrations with internal systems and external inference providers, including schema negotiation, streaming (SSE), and error normalisation • Contribute to the inference plugin's internal architecture: task settings, chunking strategies, rate limiting, and provider-level configuration • Review open source contributions to the codebase and work with third party engineers to ensure their contributions meet our technology standards • Participate in on-call rotation for inference-related incidents • Write thorough tests: unit tests using ESTestCase, YAML-based REST integration tests, and rolling-upgrade tests What You Bring • 5+ years of production Java experience, with experience contributing to a large, established Java codebase. You know core Java and are conversant in the standard library of data structures and concurrency constructs, as well as newer language features. • Experience crafting ergonomic APIs and the ability to reason through tradeoffs. • Experience with low-level Java such as concurrency, parallelism, classloaders, etc. • 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 functions and 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. Bonus Points • Knowledge of JDK internals: modules, the Java memory model, garbage collection, database load, caching techniques, etc. • Experience with ML systems • Contributions to and ownership of open source projects • Knowledge of Java build tools (Gradle, Maven, etc), with a strong preference for Gradle experience. • Experience working in a platform team or developer productivity team 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: €87.300—€138.100 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 a