Database Developer / Lead Database Engineer

About This Role

This high-impact role is at the intersection of low-level systems programming, distributed storage, and query engine optimization, focusing on building core database technology from the ground up rather than application-level software. The Database Engineer will lead the architecture, design, and deployment of engine-level database systems across high-performance, large-scale environments, tackling real-world storage challenges involving distributed consensus, transaction isolation, custom indexing, and high-throughput query processing across multi-model architectures. This position offers the opportunity to drive innovation in storage engine design, graph processing, distributed execution, and system reliability, while collaborating closely with engineering and product teams to bring resilient, production-grade database systems into reality.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement storage layers using LSM Trees, B-Trees, RocksDB, LevelDB, LMDB, WiredTiger, or custom engines
• Build efficient key-value storage layouts, secondary/composite indexes, inverted indexes, spatial indexes, and vector indexes
• Design high-throughput pagination, cursor mechanics, and large-scale dataset iteration patterns
• Optimize write/read amplification, compaction strategies, caching layers, and Bloom filters
• Implement Raft or Paxos consensus, data partitioning/sharding strategies, and multi-node replication
• Architect resilient systems capable of automated leader election, failure recovery, dynamic retries, and partition handling
• Integrate service discovery (etcd, Consul, ZooKeeper), distributed tracing/observability, zero-downtime rolling upgrades, back-ups, and storage format compatibility layers
• Work with MVCC, Snapshot Isolation, Optimistic Concurrency Control (OCC), and Two-Phase Locking (2PL)
• Implement WAL (Write-Ahead Logging), crash recovery guarantees, deadlock detection, and distributed transactions (2PC)
• Build and optimize query execution plans, join algorithms, predicate pushdowns, and distributed query execution pipelines
• Write production-grade C++17/20, Rust, Java, or Scala code focused on low-overhead memory management, profiling, and benchmarking
• Ensure transactional correctness and data integrity via distributed fault injection, property-based testing, and consistency validation suites
• Lead technical design, write RFCs/design docs, and establish system architecture (for Senior or Lead designations)
• Mentor engineers, conduct thorough code reviews, and drive technical standards (for Senior or Lead designations)
• Deconstruct complex engine initiatives into structured milestone roadmaps (for Senior or Lead designations)
• Spearhead production incident investigations and root-cause analysis (RCA) (for Senior or Lead designations)