Software Engineer, Elasticsearch

Fantom Corporation•Chantilly, VA

18h

About The Position

Fantom Corporation is a mission-focused organization supporting critical programs across the defense and intelligence community. We partner with our customers to deliver high-impact technical solutions while fostering a culture built on trust, expertise, and long-term career growth. We are seeking an experienced Search Software Engineer to develop and optimize enterprise search capabilities supporting mission-critical applications. This role focuses on backend Java development, search platform engineering, and big data technologies to build scalable, high-performance search and analytics solutions. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in Elasticsearch or Apache Solr, strong backend Java development experience, and hands-on experience working with distributed data processing frameworks in large-scale data environments.

Requirements

Must be fully cleared with a recent polygraph
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline (or equivalent experience)
Minimum of 5 years of hands-on backend Java development experience
Experience developing production software that undergoes code reviews, unit testing, integration testing, and production deployment
Minimum of 3 years of experience administering and developing solutions with Elasticsearch or Apache Solr
Experience performing schema design and schema updates
Strong knowledge of Lucene query syntax and search optimization techniques
Experience designing and managing Elasticsearch or Solr shards and distributed search architectures
Experience tuning Elasticsearch or Solr clusters for performance, scalability, and query optimization
Minimum of 3 years of experience working in big data environments
Experience with at least two of the following technologies: Hadoop Apache Spark PySpark HBase
Strong understanding of distributed computing, search architectures, and large-scale data processing
Excellent troubleshooting, analytical, and problem-solving skills
Strong written and verbal communication skills

Nice To Haves

Experience developing large-scale enterprise search platforms
Experience supporting distributed, high-availability search environments
Experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices
Experience with cloud-based search architectures
Familiarity with containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes
Experience supporting secure government or Intelligence Community environments

Responsibilities

Design, develop, and maintain enterprise search solutions using Elasticsearch or Apache Solr
Design and implement search schemas, indexing strategies, and search optimization techniques
Develop and optimize Lucene-based search queries to improve search accuracy and performance
Configure, administer, and optimize Elasticsearch or Solr clusters, including shard design, replication, and performance tuning
Develop scalable backend services using Java to support enterprise search and data processing applications
Build, test, and deploy production-ready Java code following secure software development best practices
Participate in code reviews, unit testing, integration testing, and production deployments
Develop and maintain data processing pipelines using big data technologies
Work with distributed computing frameworks to process and analyze large-scale datasets
Troubleshoot application, search platform, and data pipeline performance issues
Collaborate with software engineers, data engineers, and system architects to design scalable search and analytics solutions
Participate in Agile development activities including sprint planning, code reviews, and technical design sessions