Jobs / United States / Elasticsearch INC
Principal Software Engineer I - Serverless - Platform Control Plane
Elasticsearch INC · 🇺🇸 United States
Sponsorship verdict
Sponsorship possible
One solid signal, not two — worth applying, and worth asking about sponsorship early.
- Employer is on a government sponsor recordThe US Department of Labor certified 20 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 8 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
- The posting doesn’t mention sponsorshipSilence isn’t a refusal — ask the recruiter before investing much time.
- No salary bar for this routeH-1B has no fixed salary bar: the employer must pay at least the prevailing wage for the role and area. Cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level. Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/29/2025-23853/weighted-selection-process-for-registrants-and-petitioners-seeking-to-file-cap-subject-h-1b, rules effective 2026-02-27.
- What Elasticsearch INC paid sponsored hires in similar roles3 certified filings for “Principal Software Engineer I” (Software Developers) in WA: $277k–$299k, median $290k. Most were filed at wage level IV (100%) — 4 lottery entries, ≈61% projected selection odds for cap-subject employers. Source: US Department of Labor LCA disclosure data (Oct 2025 – Jun 2026).
- Confirmed live todayWhen a source last listed this job as open.
US H-1B: cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level — Level I gets 1 entry, Level IV gets 4 (DHS projected selection odds ≈15% at Level I to ≈61% at Level IV). Universities and non-profit research employers are cap-exempt. The $100,000 fee for new petitions from abroad is currently blocked by a court order (appeal pending).
A verdict summarises public evidence; it is not legal advice and never a guarantee — the employer and the immigration authority decide. Sign in to factor in where you can already work.
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Sponsor Radar — Elasticsearch INC
The US Department of Labor certified 20 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 8 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
Past sponsorship or register membership never guarantees sponsorship for this vacancy or for you. Full Sponsor Radar for Elasticsearch INC →
About the role
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 : 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. What You Will Be Doing : • 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. What You Bring : • 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 tra