Manager, Software Engineering - Storage Platform

Figma•San Francisco, CA

7d•$258,000 - $376,000•Remote

About The Position

Figma's Databases team owns the foundational data layer that powers every Figma file, component, comment, and collaboration session. We operate sharded Postgres clusters at scale, build the tooling that keeps database operations safe and fast (schema migrations, provisioning, operational guardrails), and develop higher-level data products like distributed caching and streaming infrastructure. As the Engineering Manager of this team, you'll lead engineers who are the last line of defense for Figma's most critical stateful systems — and the first to build the next generation of database infrastructure as Figma scales. You'll partner closely with product engineering teams across the company, own reliability and performance for our data tier, and shape how we integrate AI into database operations. This is a full time role that can be held from one of our US hubs or remotely in the United States.

Requirements

4+ years of experience managing infrastructure, platform, or backend engineering teams
Proven technical depth in distributed systems, stateful infrastructure, or data-intensive backend systems, with a track record of earning credibility with senior engineers and making informed technical tradeoffs
Demonstrated ability to ramp quickly on unfamiliar technical domains and apply strong engineering fundamentals
Track record of building or improving on-call culture, incident response processes, and reliability practices for production systems
Experience developing engineers' careers — you've coached people through promotions, navigated difficult performance conversations, and built teams that people want to join
Comfort leading distributed teams across multiple time zones

Nice To Haves

Experience managing managers or leading multiple teams across related technical domains
Experience defining org-wide technical vision and strategy across multiple work streams
Hands-on experience operating relational databases at scale (Postgres or MySQL) — including sharding, replication, and migration strategies
Familiarity with AI/LLM-assisted developer tooling and how it can transform infrastructure operations
Background in adjacent infrastructure domains (caching, streaming/event processing, observability) that complement the database layer
Experience at a high-growth product company where infrastructure needed to evolve rapidly alongside the product

Responsibilities

Lead and develop engineers responsible for Figma's core database infrastructure, including sharded Postgres clusters, schema management, migrations tooling, and database provisioning
Own the reliability and operational excellence of Figma's data tier — drive incident response, postmortem culture, and proactive investment in system resilience
Set technical direction and roadmap for the area, balancing reliability investments with platform capabilities that accelerate product engineering teams
Partner with product and engineering leadership to prioritize work across competing demands — this is a foundational platform team that every product team depends on
Recruit, retain, and grow top infrastructure engineering talent — build a team culture where engineers do the best work of their careers
Drive execution through clear planning, regular reviews, and transparent communication of progress and risks to stakeholders
Collaborate with peer engineering managers across Infrastructure on shared operational standards and cross-cutting initiatives
Champion the adoption of AI-assisted tooling to improve developer experience around database operations — from schema guidance to automated migration safety checks