Senior Observability Engineer (ESS Platform SME)

Job Title:

Senior Observability Engineer (ESS Platform SME)

Location:

McLean, VA(onsite) & inperson

Interview Job Type:

C2C or W2

Role Overview:

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Observability Engineer with deep expertise in ESS (Elastic Stack) to lead and accelerate the development of enterprise-grade observability capabilities across mission-critical applications. This role requires a hands-on SME who can design, build, and scale observability dashboards, APM, tracing, and monitoring solutions exclusively within ESS . The candidate will play a key role in transforming current monitoring into a proactive, intelligent, and scalable observability ecosystem . This is a high-impact, fast-paced engagement (target requiring ownership, technical depth, and execution excellence.

Key Responsibilities:

ESS Observability Architecture & Implementation Design and implement end-to-end observability solutions using ESS (Elastic Stack) . Build a centralized observability layer covering all MF applications. Ensure block-level aggregation with drill-down to: Application-level metrics APM traces Logs and events Service dependencies Dashboard Engineering (Critical Priority) Develop and scale a large backlog of ESS dashboards , including but not limited to: Cluster Health (OCP/K8s)

API & APM

Dashboards Service Health & Dependency Monitoring Pod Status / Restart / Scaling Metrics HTTP Status Analytics (200/400/500 trends) Transaction Processing Metrics Infra Metrics (CPU, Memory, Disk, Network) Synthetic Monitoring & Availability Build intuitive, drill-down dashboards from MF Block Service Application level.

APM, Tracing & Monitoring Expansion Expand ESS-based:

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) Distributed tracing Real User Monitoring (RUM) Synthetic monitoring Enable end-to-end traceability across microservices . Proactive Observability & Alerting Design and implement smart alerting rules : Move from reactive proactive detection Reduce noise, improve signal quality Define SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets Enhance anomaly detection and trend analysis Collaboration & Leadership Work closely with: EOT Observability Team Internal CDLs Application teams Act as ESS Observability SME Provide guidance, standards, and best practices

Required Skills & Experience:

Strong hands-on experience with ESS (Elastic Stack) : Elasticsearch Logstash Kibana Beats / Elastic Agent Elastic APM Proven experience building enterprise-scale observability dashboards in ESS Deep understanding of: Microservices architecture Kubernetes / OpenShift (OCP) Experience with: APM, distributed tracing, logging, metrics correlation Ability to design multi-layer observability (infra platform app)

Strongly Preferred:

Experience with: Synthetic monitoring tools integrated with ESS Real User Monitoring (RUM) Service maps and dependency graphs

Knowledge of:

CI/CD observability integration Alerting frameworks within

Elastic Scripting:

Python / Shell / Groovy (nice to have)

Soft Skills:

Strong ownership mindset Ability to work under aggressive timelines Excellent problem-solving skills Clear communication with technical and non-technical teams Success Criteria (First 3 6 Months): Deliver enterprise-grade ESS observability dashboards Achieve full MF application visibility Implement end-to-end APM + tracing coverage Establish proactive alerting framework

Additional Notes:

Candidate must be an ESS expert - alternative tools experience alone will not be sufficient. This is a high-priority, business-critical role with immediate impact expectations.