Senior Software Engineer II, Managed Databases

DigitalOcean•Boston, MA

20h•Remote

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 and AI inference without managing clusters themselves. The position involves applying 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 ideal candidate is comfortable moving from ambiguous problems to design, implementation, launch, and long-term operation in a fast-paced, disruptive environment.

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).
Proven track record diagnosing and solving complex, high-concurrency engineering problems in production cloud environments.
Strong understanding of concurrency, failure modes, multi-region concerns, and performance optimization in production Linux/cloud environments.
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

Working knowledge of relational database engine internals—specifically PostgreSQL and/or MySQL—including query performance, replication, and scale.
Experience scaling services for compute, memory, and networking demands of data-intensive or AI inference-adjacent workloads.

Responsibilities

Architect and implement DBaaS platform systems, designing and building scalable control-plane and infrastructure components to improve throughput, multi-region operability, and reliability.
Translate ambiguous requirements into deliverable architecture by deconstructing customer and system needs into clear technical designs and workstreams.
Own performance and resiliency outcomes on services by improving resource utilization, fault tolerance, and availability through profiling and targeted changes.
Strengthen lifecycle capabilities by shipping improvements to automated failover, continuous backups, point-in-time recovery (PITR), and maintenance workflows.
Scale control-plane and infrastructure pieces to support compute-heavy and high-concurrency customer workloads, addressing data-heavy and AI-adjacent demand.
Raise the team's engineering bar by guiding technical decisions through design and code reviews and contributing clear design documents.
Mentor team members through technical guidance, architectural reviews, and code-quality standards.
Operate built systems by establishing observability, failover, and recovery practices, participating in on-call rotations, and implementing durable platform improvements based on incident learnings.