Senior PostgreSQL Storage & Systems Engineer

Tessell Inc • San Francisco, CA

95d

About The Position

We’re looking for a Senior PostgreSQL Developer with deep expertise in PostgreSQL’s storage engine internals to join our core database engineering team. This role will focus on low-level database internals, particularly around storage, WAL, checkpointing, and buffer management—while helping evolve PostgreSQL for cloud-native, high-performance, and distributed environments.
You’ll work with some of the sharpest minds in systems and database engineering, and contribute directly to improving how PostgreSQL runs at scale in modern cloud architectures. If you’re someone who has navigated the PostgreSQL source tree, written or tuned storage code, and is excited about pushing PostgreSQL further into the cloud-native era, we want to talk to you.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience working with PostgreSQL internals, especially storage subsystem
• Strong systems-level programming skills in C (and optionally Rust/Go)
• Solid understanding of WAL internals, buffer pool management, page formats, and disk write flows
• Experience working with Linux systems internals (filesystems, IO schedulers, memory management, etc.)
• Prior contributions to PostgreSQL open-source community is a major plus
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and experience optimizing PostgreSQL for virtualized or containerized environments
• Exposure to Kubernetes, container orchestration, and persistent storage architectures
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, or equivalent hands-on experience

Nice To Haves

• Experience building PostgreSQL-compatible services in the cloud (e.g., Aurora, AlloyDB, Cloud SQL)
• Familiarity with columnar storage, compression techniques, or distributed filesystems
• Deep knowledge of PostgreSQL replication internals or custom backup engines
• Experience with observability tooling and performance benchmarking at scale

Responsibilities

• Work on PostgreSQL storage internals — buffer manager, WAL, background writer, vacuum, checkpoints, and crash recovery
• Design and build enhancements for cloud-native PostgreSQL workloads (e.g., tiered storage, snapshotting, IO scaling)
• Contribute to PostgreSQL extensions or core patches related to storage engine functionality
• Optimize disk IO paths, memory usage, and write-ahead logging for large-scale databases
• Collaborate with the platform team to make PostgreSQL run efficiently on Kubernetes, containerized environments, and across multi-cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Conduct deep analysis of performance regressions, memory leaks, and IO bottlenecks using perf, gdb, strace, etc.
• Participate in code reviews, RFCs, and upstream community discussions where applicable
• Drive innovation in replication, backup, and HA strategies through low-level systems improvements

Benefits

• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge database internals powering real-world production systems
• Work with a collaborative, high-caliber team across USA and India
• Competitive compensation and equity
• A flexible work environment focused on innovation, ownership, and impact

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Number of Employees: 101-250 employees