Staff Engineer II - Elastic Search Engineer

Western Alliance Bank•San Diego, CA

4d•Onsite

About The Position

Within the EAS IT department, the Staff Engineer II – Elastic Platform Engineer serves as the technical lead and Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the enterprise observability platform, including Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and supporting infrastructure. This role is responsible for the administration, optimization, and operational support of Elastic clusters and data ingestion pipelines, ensuring platform scalability, reliability, security, and performance. The position leads the onboarding and enablement of new log sources and observability use cases, including proof-of-concept activities, access governance, Kibana space administration, stakeholder engagement, and the establishment of engineering standards and best practices. Additionally, Staff Engineer II develops and maintains Ansible automation for deployment, configuration management, patching, and operational support across Linux/Unix environments, while providing leadership for incident management, platform troubleshooting, operational procedures, and continuous service improvement. Design, implement, and maintain ElasticSearch index templates, data lifecycle management policies (Hot/Warm/Cold/Frozen tiers), shard allocation strategies, performance tuning, and resource utilization monitoring to ensure a stable and cost-effective logging platform. Engineer and support Logstash data ingestion pipelines, including log parsing, transformation, troubleshooting, performance optimization, capacity planning, and integration with enterprise log sources across cloud and on-premises environments. Manage and maintain Azure monitoring and observability services, including Log Analytics Workspaces (LAW), Event Hubs, Azure Monitor, and associated platform components; perform resource monitoring, capacity management, alert configuration, diagnostics, and portal administration. Lead the strategic planning of a project as it relates to technical solution design. Design and implement engineering principles aimed at reliability practices and sound recovery procedures. Design transaction specific application performance monitoring metrics that can be captured and passed to business partners. Develop and maintain technical documentation, including system configurations and procedures while also ensuring compliance with IT policies, procedures, and industry standards. Develop desktop procedures when needed that others follow.

Requirements

7+ years of related experience in IT App Support, IT Development, IT Networking, or similar field.
Bachelor's degree in a related field required.
Knowledge of ElasticSearch, Kibana, and Logstash is required.
Proficiency with KQL, Bash, PowerShell/Azure CLI cmdlets is required.
Advanced knowledge of applicable regulatory and legal compliance obligations, rules and regulations, industry standards and practices.
Advanced proven experience in leading cross-functional teams and managing multiple projects simultaneously.
Advanced ability to see the big picture and align projects with organizational goals.
Capable of leading and motivating cross-functional teams.
Expertise in resolving conflicts and addressing challenges.
Skilled at identifying and mitigating risks at the project level.
Proficient in governance patterns tied to intake, technical reviews, and architectural compliance.
Advanced speaking and writing communication skills.

Nice To Haves

Previous leadership experience preferred.
Experience with relational database management systems (RDBMS), including data analysis, data mapping, and query development using T-SQL and/or PL/SQL, is preferred.
Experience with Linux/Unix administration is preferred.
Experience leveraging process orchestration tools such as Control-M is preferred.
Intermediate to advanced knowledge of general Financial Services or Banking is preferred.
Additional experience with pipeline development and leveraging Azure DevOps while working on multiple projects simultaneously.

Responsibilities

Serve as the technical lead and Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the enterprise observability platform, including Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, and supporting infrastructure.
Administer, optimize, and operationally support Elastic clusters and data ingestion pipelines, ensuring platform scalability, reliability, security, and performance.
Lead the onboarding and enablement of new log sources and observability use cases, including proof-of-concept activities, access governance, Kibana space administration, and stakeholder engagement.
Establish engineering standards and best practices for the observability platform.
Develop and maintain Ansible automation for deployment, configuration management, patching, and operational support across Linux/Unix environments.
Provide leadership for incident management, platform troubleshooting, operational procedures, and continuous service improvement.
Design, implement, and maintain ElasticSearch index templates, data lifecycle management policies (Hot/Warm/Cold/Frozen tiers), shard allocation strategies, performance tuning, and resource utilization monitoring.
Engineer and support Logstash data ingestion pipelines, including log parsing, transformation, troubleshooting, performance optimization, and capacity planning.
Manage and maintain Azure monitoring and observability services, including Log Analytics Workspaces (LAW), Event Hubs, Azure Monitor, and associated platform components.
Perform resource monitoring, capacity management, alert configuration, diagnostics, and portal administration for Azure services.
Lead the strategic planning of projects related to technical solution design.
Design and implement engineering principles for reliability practices and sound recovery procedures.
Design transaction-specific application performance monitoring metrics.
Develop and maintain technical documentation, including system configurations and procedures.
Ensure compliance with IT policies, procedures, and industry standards.
Develop desktop procedures when needed.