Staff Software Developer - OpenSearch
Business Area:
EngineeringSeniority Level:
Mid-Senior levelJob Description:
At Cloudera, we empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. With as much data under management as the hyperscalers, we're the preferred data partner for the top companies in almost every industry. Powered by the relentless innovation of the open source community, Cloudera advances digital transformation for the world’s largest enterprises.
As a Staff Software Engineer for OpenSearch, you will be a key technical leader and architect for the search heartbeat of the Cloudera Data Platform (CDP). In this role, you will drive the technical vision and strategic evolution of a high-performance, scalable, and secure search infrastructure that powers data discovery, observability, and analytics for the world’s largest enterprises.
You will have the opportunity to work at a massive scale, designing systems capable of handling petabytes of data while directly influencing the open-source community.
As a Staff Software Engineer you will:
Drive the multi-quarter technical roadmap and design large-scale OpenSearch clusters capable of handling petabytes of data with low-latency indexing and query performance.
Deeply integrate OpenSearch with core platform components like Apache Iceberg, SDX, and Ozone to provide a unified search experience across the data lakehouse.
Lead efforts to optimize JVM settings, shard allocation strategies, and query DSL to ensure maximum throughput and stability.
Oversee the development of Kubernetes Operators and Helm charts for automated deployment, scaling, and self-healing of search services.
Define and champion engineering best practices for security (RBAC, TLS), observability, and enterprise-grade reliability.
Mentor senior and junior engineers on complex technical designs, fostering a culture of continuous technical improvement.
Act as a primary liaison and influencer within the upstream OpenSearch community, aligning their roadmap with Cloudera's product strategy.
We’re excited about you if you have:
8+ years of experience working with OpenSearch or Elasticsearch in large-scale production environments.
Deep technical understanding of distributed systems, including consensus algorithms, the CAP theorem, replication, and sharding.
Mastery of Java for core development, paired with a proficiency in Go or Python for automation and tooling.
Extensive infrastructure experience with Kubernetes (K8s) and container orchestration frameworks.
Hands-on experience deploying and managing heavy search workloads across public cloud platforms (AWS/EKS/AOSS, Azure/AKS, or GCP/GKE).
You may also have:
Deep familiarity with Lucene internals, such as segment merging, bitsets, and codecs.
Practical knowledge of Vector Database capabilities within OpenSearch to support Generative AI and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) use cases.
A proven track record of code contributions to prominent open-source projects (Apache Software Foundation or the OpenSearch Project).
What you can expect from us:
Generous PTO Policy
Support work life balance with Unplugged Days
Flexible WFH Policy
Mental & Physical Wellness programs
Phone and Internet Reimbursement program
Access to Continued Career Development
Comprehensive Benefits and Competitive Packages
Employee Resource Groups
EEO/VEVRAA
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