Staff Software Engineer, Storage Platform
About The Position
Robinhood is building an elite team applying frontier technologies to the world’s biggest financial problems. They are looking for bold thinkers, sharp problem-solvers, and builders who are wired to make an impact. Robinhood is a place where ambitious people do the best work of their careers. The Storage Platform team builds and operates the platform that powers database access across Robinhood. They own relational (Postgres/Aurora), key-value (DynamoDB), and caching systems, along with the SDKs, control plane automation, and data plane services that enable safe and reliable access at scale. Their mission is to standardize and strengthen how services connect to storage, improve reliability and performance, and reduce operational overhead through automation. They manage thousands of databases and hundreds of caching clusters supporting millions of users and critical brokerage workloads. Availability is their highest priority — their systems are designed to meet strict uptime targets, including no downtime during market hours. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will design and evolve the core infrastructure that underpins Robinhood’s storage systems. You’ll lead complex distributed systems initiatives such as horizontal sharding, proxy-based query routing, connection pooling, and cross-shard transactions. You’ll work on improving database reliability, performance, and cost efficiency across multi-region deployments. This role has a direct impact on system availability, latency, and resiliency for customer-facing products and internal engineering teams. This role is based in our Bellevue, WA office, with in-person attendance expected at least 3 days per week. Robinhood believes in the power of in-person work to accelerate progress, spark innovation, and strengthen community. Their office experience is intentional, energizing, and designed to fully support high-performing teams.
Requirements
- Deep expertise in PostgreSQL (Aurora PostgreSQL preferred) and strong understanding of relational database internals
- Experience building or operating distributed systems, including horizontal sharding, replication, and distributed transactions (e.g., two-phase commit)
- Proficiency in Go and/or Rust, with experience building backend or infrastructure services
- Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, AWS managed services (RDS, DynamoDB), and observability tooling (metrics, logging, tracing)
- Strong understanding of system reliability, performance tuning, and cost optimization in high-scale production environments
Responsibilities
- Design and implement distributed storage systems, including sharding strategies, query routing layers, and database proxy services
- Improve availability, failover, and disaster recovery capabilities across multi-region deployments
- Build and enhance control plane automation that manages thousands of databases and caching clusters at scale
- Optimize database performance and throughput by analyzing query patterns, improving connection pooling, and implementing observability standards
- Partner with product and infrastructure teams to standardize how services connect to Postgres, NoSQL, and caching systems while meeting regulatory and security requirements
Benefits
- Challenging, high-impact work to grow your career.
- Performance-driven compensation with multipliers for outsized impact, bonus programs, equity ownership, and 401(k) matching.
- Best-in-class benefits to fuel your work, including 100% paid health insurance for employees with 90% coverage for dependents.
- Lifestyle wallet — a highly flexible benefits spending account for wellness, learning, and more.
- Employer-paid life & disability insurance, fertility benefits, and mental health benefits.
- Time off to recharge including company holidays, paid time off, sick time, parental leave, and more!
- Exceptional office experience with catered meals, events, and comfortable workspaces.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
