Senior Software Engineer II, Managed Databases
About The Position
DigitalOcean is seeking a Senior Software Engineer II to join their Managed Databases (DBaaS) engineering organization. This role focuses on delivering fully managed Postgres, MySQL, and related database services, enabling customers to run production data workloads, AI inference, and data-intensive applications without managing clusters themselves. The successful candidate will leverage advanced expertise in distributed control planes, database platform infrastructure, and production reliability. Key responsibilities include bridging product and system requirements with architecture, leading complex technical projects across DBaaS and adjacent platform boundaries, and mentoring engineers. The role requires comfort in moving independently from ambiguous problems to design, implementation, launch, and long-term operation.
Requirements
- 8+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems or data-plane/control-plane infrastructure (SaaS/PaaS or equivalent).
- Production depth: Proven track record diagnosing and solving complex, high-concurrency engineering problems in production cloud environments.
- Distributed systems mastery: Strong understanding of concurrency, failure modes, multi-region concerns, and performance optimization in production Linux/cloud environments.
- Collaboration & mentorship: Track record of driving complex cross-team technical projects, mentoring engineers, and communicating tradeoffs clearly with partners and leadership.
- Growth mindset: Appetite for feedback and a “leave it better than you found it” approach to architecture and maintainability.
Nice To Haves
- Database platform fluency: Working knowledge of relational database engine internals—specifically PostgreSQL and/or MySQL—including query performance, replication, and scale (preferred).
- Scale for data & AI workloads: Experience scaling services for compute, memory, and networking demands of data-intensive or AI inference-adjacent workloads (preferred).
Responsibilities
- Architect and implement DBaaS platform systems: Design and build scalable control-plane and infrastructure components that improve throughput, multi-region operability, and reliability for managed database workloads.
- Turn ambiguous requirements into deliverable architecture: Deconstruct customer and system needs into clear technical designs and workstreams that drive predictable delivery with product and engineering partners.
- Own performance and resiliency outcomes on your services: Improve resource utilization, fault tolerance, and availability—using profiling and targeted changes against I/O, CPU, and network bottlenecks under real production load.
- Strengthen lifecycle capabilities: Ship improvements to automated failover, continuous backups, point-in-time recovery (PITR), and maintenance workflows so clusters handle higher data volumes and tighter SLAs.
- Scale for data-heavy and AI-adjacent demand: Expand and harden control-plane and infrastructure pieces that support compute-heavy and high-concurrency customer workloads.
- Raise the team engineering bar: Guide technical decisions for engineers on the squad through design and code reviews; contribute clear design docs for the initiatives you lead.
- Mentor team members: Coach engineers through technical guidance, architectural reviews, and code-quality standards to accelerate growth and execution velocity.
- Operate what you build: Establish observability, failover, and recovery practices; participate in on-call; turn incident learnings into durable platform improvements.
Benefits
- Competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy
- Reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education
- Access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses
- Bonus in addition to base salary
- Equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
