Staff Software Development Engineer - Data Platform (PostgreSQL Specialist)

ID.me•Mountain View, CA

54d•Onsite

About The Position

ID.me is seeking a Staff Software Development Engineer (SDE-V) to lead the design, evolution, and operation of our PostgreSQL-based data platform. This role will focus on building and scaling the databases, APIs, and automation that form the foundation of ID.me's core identity systems. As a Staff Engineer, you will serve as the organization's technical expert in PostgreSQL administration, development, and performance engineering at scale. You will drive improvements in database reliability, observability, schema design, and query optimization. You'll work across engineering, infrastructure, and compliance teams to ensure that ID.me's data platform is secure, resilient, and capable of supporting mission-critical workloads and regulatory requirements. This is a highly technical and hands-on role that combines deep database expertise with strong software engineering skills to build scalable, high-performance systems. This role is based out of our Mountain View, CA or McLean, VA offices and requires full-time in-office attendance.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Graduate degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
8+ years of professional software development experience, including 3+ years working extensively with PostgreSQL in production at scale.
Proficiency in a systems programming language such as Go, Java, Ruby, or Python.

Nice To Haves

Deep expertise in PostgreSQL architecture, query planning, replication, indexing, and tuning.
Hands-on experience managing PostgreSQL in cloud environments (AWS RDS, Aurora PostgreSQL, GCP Cloud SQL, or self-managed Kubernetes).
Proven experience implementing high-availability and disaster recovery solutions.
Strong understanding of data security, encryption, and compliance controls.
Experience extending PostgreSQL through custom extensions or PL/pgSQL procedures.
Familiarity with event-driven architectures and data pipelines (e.g., Kafka, Debezium, or CDC frameworks).
Experience automating database lifecycle management with Terraform, Ansible, or Kubernetes Operators.
Strong leadership and mentorship skills, with a track record of influencing data and infrastructure strategy.
Passion for reliability, observability, and building clean abstractions that simplify database operations at scale.

Responsibilities

Architect, build, and optimize PostgreSQL databases that power high-volume identity, authentication, and analytics workloads.
Develop automation, tooling, and APIs for provisioning, scaling, and managing PostgreSQL instances in a cloud-native environment.
Drive improvements in query performance, indexing strategies, and schema design for operational and analytical systems.
Design and implement replication, sharding, and partitioning strategies to ensure scalability and fault tolerance.
Partner with Platform and SRE teams to enhance monitoring, observability, and alerting for database health, latency, and throughput.
Build guardrails and automation around data retention, governance, and compliance (e.g., GDPR, FedRAMP).
Guide engineers in best practices for database access patterns, connection management, and transactional consistency.
Collaborate with product teams to support data-intensive application development through well-structured APIs and data services.
Evaluate and extend PostgreSQL using extensions, PL/pgSQL functions, triggers, or custom tooling to meet product needs.
Mentor other engineers and provide architectural leadership on data-intensive projects.

Benefits

ID.me offers comprehensive medical, dental, vision, health savings account, flexible spending accounts (medical, limited purpose, dependent care, commuter benefit accounts), basic and voluntary life and AD&D insurance, 401(k) with company match, parental leave, ability to participate in unlimited paid time off subject to the terms and conditions of the PTO policy, including 8 company wide holidays, short and long-term disability insurance, accident and critical illness insurance, referral bonus policy, employee assistance program, pet insurance, travel assistant program, wellbeing and childcare discounts, benefit advocates, and a learning and development benefit.

Stand Out From the Crowd

Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.

Upload and Match Resume