Apache Solr Administrator (Search Platform / ELK) - 0122 SS #2

Job Title: Apache Solr Administrator (Search Platform / ELK)

Duration: 12 months
Location: New York City, NY
Work Type: Onsite / Hybrid (as required)
Pay Rate: $50

Role Summary

We are seeking a Search Platform Administrator with strong hands-on expertise in Apache Solr administration as the primary skill set. Exposure to the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) is secondary and beneficial.

This role focuses on supporting and optimizing Solr platforms across non-production and production environments, ensuring high performance, scalability, reliability, and secure operations. The candidate will also support Elasticsearch Proofs of Concept (PoCs) and search platform observability initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

Apache Solr (Primary Responsibilities)

• Lead Apache Solr administration across non-production and production environments

• Operate and manage SolrCloud, including ZooKeeper, shards, replicas, and leader election

• Perform advanced JVM tuning (heap/off-heap memory, garbage collection, threads, caches)

• Diagnose and resolve search performance issues related to CPU, GC, latency, throughput, and memory leaks

• Optimize high-volume indexing through commit strategies and merge policies

• Implement and enforce security and high availability:

  • TLS encryption

  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

  • Auditing and monitoring

  • Zero-downtime upgrades

ELK Stack (Secondary / Optional)

• Design, deploy, and operate Elasticsearch clusters for PoCs and production use cases

• Tune Elasticsearch:

  • Index mappings

  • Sharding strategies

  • JVM settings

  • Query DSL performance

• Secure Elasticsearch using TLS and RBAC

• Implement observability, monitoring, and alerting using tools such as:

  • Prometheus

  • Grafana

  • Elastic Stack monitoring

Platform Operations

• Perform capacity planning, benchmarking, and performance testing

• Conduct Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for platform incidents

• Develop and maintain:

  • Operational documentation

  • Runbooks

  • Best practices for search platform operations

Lucidworks Fusion (Highly Preferred)

• Install, configure, and support Lucidworks Fusion (on-prem and/or cloud)

• Manage:

  • Custom Fusion JARs

  • Patches and upgrades (including vendor-led upgrades)

• Build, tune, and maintain ingestion and query pipelines

• Troubleshoot Fusion, Spark, and connector-related failures

Required Skills & Experience (Must-Have)

• 4–5 years of hands-on Apache Solr administration experience

• Deep expertise in SolrCloud operations

• Strong JVM tuning and performance optimization skills

• Advanced troubleshooting of:

  • Indexing pipelines

  • Search queries

  • Platform stability and performance

• Strong understanding of:

  • TLS and security best practices

  • RBAC

  • High availability architectures

  • Zero-downtime upgrade strategies

• Experience supporting Lucidworks Fusion, including installation, pipelines, and upgrades

Secondary / Optional Skills (Nice-to-Have)

• ELK stack experience:

  • Elasticsearch (PoCs and production)

  • Logstash and Kibana exposure

• Observability and monitoring tools:

  • Prometheus

  • Grafana

  • Elastic Stack monitoring

• Experience with Spark connectors and ingestion pipeline tuning

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

• Equivalent professional experience will be considered in lieu of formal education