Senior Elastic Engineer

Remote from: USA
Salary, yearly, USD: 120,000 - 160,000
Department: Software Engineering
Employment type: Full Time,
Job posted: 22 May 2026
Apply before: 22 Jun 2026
Experience level: Senior
Views / Applies: 10 / 3

About ECS

Partnering with leading organizations to deliver powerful solutions for a complex world.

Actively Hiring

AI Summary

This Senior Elastic Engineer role at Everforth ECS Federal supports the VA in modernizing enterprise observability and cybersecurity. The position requires deep expertise in the Elastic Stack, including cluster architecture, Logstash pipelines, and security compliance. Candidates need 7+ years of experience and the ability to obtain a Tier 5 background investigation. The role offers a salary range of $120,000-$160,000 and involves mentoring junior engineers.

Job Complexity

Easy Hard

AI Insight The role demands extensive experience (7+ years), specialized Elastic Stack skills, federal security compliance knowledge, and the ability to obtain a high-level clearance, making it challenging.

Salary Analysis

AI Insight The offered salary range of $120,000-$160,000 is competitive for a senior Elastic Engineer role, aligning with the US market median of $140,000. The high end is slightly below market max due to federal sector constraints, but benefits and stability often compensate.

Key Skills

Elastic Stack Elasticsearch Logstash Kibana SIEM Cybersecurity Cloud Architecture Log Aggregation Data Analytics Federal Compliance

Cover Letter Sample

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am writing to express my strong interest in the Senior Elastic Engineer position at Everforth ECS Federal. With over 7 years of experience in enterprise logging and SIEM platforms, including extensive hands-on work with the Elastic Stack, I am confident in my ability to support the VA's observability modernization initiatives.

In my previous role, I architected highly available Elasticsearch clusters and optimized ingestion pipelines for high-volume data, ensuring compliance with federal security standards. I hold relevant certifications and have a proven track record of mentoring junior engineers and obtaining ATOs.

I am eager to bring my technical expertise and dedication to cybersecurity to this critical role supporting the VA. Thank you for considering my application.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]

Possible Interview Questions

Describe your experience architecting highly available Elasticsearch clusters. What considerations did you make for scalability and performance?

I have architected multi-node Elasticsearch clusters with cross-cluster replication and shard allocation awareness. For scalability, I used index lifecycle management to roll over indices and optimize shard sizes. Performance tuning involved adjusting refresh intervals, using routing, and monitoring cluster health with Elastic's monitoring tools.

How do you ensure compliance with federal security standards like VA Handbook 6500 when implementing Elastic Security features?

I implement RBAC with fine-grained permissions, enable TLS encryption for data in transit, and configure audit logging. I also use Elastic's security features to mask sensitive data and ensure that all configurations align with NIST SP 800-53 controls. Regular security reviews and automated compliance checks are part of my workflow.

Can you walk me through a time you optimized Logstash pipelines for high-volume data? What challenges did you face?

I optimized pipelines by using persistent queues to handle backpressure and filter workers to parallelize processing. Challenges included memory consumption and ensuring data integrity. I used grok and dissect filters for parsing, and employed conditional logic to route data efficiently. Monitoring with Logstash monitoring APIs helped identify bottlenecks.

How do you approach mentoring junior engineers while managing your own technical responsibilities?

I allocate time for pair programming and code reviews, focusing on knowledge transfer. I create documentation and conduct brown-bag sessions on best practices. By setting clear expectations and using agile methodologies, I ensure that mentoring does not impact project deadlines.

What experience do you have with cloud environments (AWS/Azure) and how do you integrate Elastic Stack with cloud services?

I have deployed Elasticsearch on AWS using EC2 instances with auto-scaling groups and on Azure using VMs. I integrated with cloud services like S3 for snapshots and Azure Blob Storage for backups. I also used cloud-native tools like AWS Lambda for serverless ingestion and Azure Event Hubs for log streaming.

Everforth ECS Federal is seeking a Senior Elastic Engineer to support enterprise observability modernization and migration initiatives within a federal healthcare environment supporting the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Senior Elastic Engineer serves as a subject matter expert for the design, implementation, and optimization of the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, Beats) in support of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) enterprise networks and cybersecurity operations. This role is critical for establishing robust log aggregation, data analytics, and real-time dashboarding to enhance situational awareness, threat hunting capabilities, and overall cybersecurity posture across VA information systems.

Required Skills:

Must be a US citizen with ability to obtain and maintain a Tier 5 (T5) background investigation (Public Trust Level 5)

Minimum 7 years of experience supporting enterprise logging, SIEM, observability, or cybersecurity engineering platforms

Minimum 5 years of hands-on Elastic Stack engineering experience

Develop and maintain Logstash pipelines and Beats configurations to efficiently route and process high-volume network, security, and application data

Monitor cluster health and optimize indices, shards, and queries for maximum performance and cost-effectiveness

Implement and maintain Elastic Security features (e.g., Role-Based Access Control, TLS encryption) ensuring compliance with VA Handbook 6500 and federal security standards

Analyze operational impacts associated with cybersecurity events, system changes, and platform performance issues with the ability to apply cybersecurity and privacy principles to organizational requirements