Software Engineer, Database Service

What to Expect

The Database as a Service (DBaaS) engineering team builds a microservices platform that automates deployment, management, and orchestration of database clusters, messaging systems, and storage infrastructure  a Staff Software Engineer, you'll architect and implement mission-critical components including our API gateway with SPIFFE/AAD authentication, Temporal-based workflow orchestration, authorization services with sub-millisecond latency, and infrastructure automation via Ansible integration.

Our platform follows a gateway-first architecture where all services communicate through a centralized gateway handling routing, authentication (AAD/SPIFFE mTLS), rate limiting, and OpenAPI aggregation.

You'll work with technologies including FastAPI, Mongo

DB, Temporal workflows, authorization engines, and Kubernetes orchestration-all deployed via CI/CD with comprehensive observability through Prometheus and Grafana.

Tesla operates in a fast-paced environment requiring rapid iteration and architectural flexibility. You'll need to dive deep into production code, debug complex distributed systems issues, and make critical decisions that impact platform reliability. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in building scalable distributed systems, strong software engineering fundamentals, and the ability to mentor engineers while driving technical excellence through code reviews and architectural guidance.

Tesla is a fast-paced and dynamic environment that can pivot directions quickly, so the ability to quickly respond to changes in direction is critical - the answer is in the code, and you will dive in to code to find the solution(s) needed, and make changes, ensuring rapid iteration, and world-class support of our users. The ideal candidate will have a passion for building world-class software and a track record of success creating highly and scalable software systems.

You will need strong software engineering skills, excellent interpersonal communication, and experience accepting and giving meaningful feedback on technical designs and pull requests.

• Lead architecture and design of complex microservices components within the DBaaS platform, including gateway routing, workflow orchestration, and authorization systems
• Own critical services end-to-end from design through production deployment, ensuring 99.9%+ uptime with comprehensive monitoring and alerting
• Drive technical decisions on authentication patterns (SPIFFE mTLS, AAD OAuth), caching strategies (TTL vs LRU for security‑critical data), and API design (OpenAPI spec management)
• Implement and maintain strong testing discipline: pytest frameworks, unit/integration testing, mocking strategies, and >95% code coverage standards
• Mentor junior engineers through code reviews, pair programming, and architectural guidance-setting the standard for Python type safety, testing practices, and FastAPI patterns
• Collaborate with platform engineers, SREs, and product teams to deliver automated workflows for database deployment, resource management, and infrastructure provisioning
• Champion Dev Ops practices including Docker/Kubernetes deployment, CI/CD pipeline optimization (Jenkins), and observability (Open Telemetry, Prometheus, Tempo tracing)
• Respond rapidly to production incidents, performing root cause analysis and debugging across the stack (Python profiling, database query analysis, network tracing, Kubernetes troubleshooting)
• Evolve platform architecture to support new database engines, messaging systems, and cloud infrastructure while maintaining backward compatibility
• Lead code quality initiatives through Git workflows, code reviews, and maintaining high standards via linting (ruff, pylint) and static analysis (mypy)

• Degree in Computer Science, or equivalent, with 6+ years of working experience with deep expertise in Python (async/await, context managers, Pydantic models, type hints with mypy) and microservices architecture using FastAPI/Flask, REST APIs, OpenAPI specifications
• Production experience with distributed systems technologies including Mongo
  
  DB (replica sets, aggregation pipelines), Postgre
  
  SQL, and workflow orchestration frameworks (Temporal or similar)
• Expert knowledge of authentication/authorization patterns: service-to-service authentication (OAuth2, mTLS, SPIFFE), JWT validation, JWKS, group-based access control, and client certificate validation
• Hands‑on experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, Git Lab CI), and infrastructure automation tools (Ansible, Terraform)
• Strong background in database systems: query optimization, schema design, and working with multiple engines (Mongo
  
  DB, MySQL, Postgre
  
  SQL) plus message queues (Kafka, Rabbit
  
  MQ)
• Experience implementing comprehensive observability:
  Open Telemetry instrumentation, Prometheus metrics, Grafana dashboards, and distributed tracing in production environments
• Excellent technical communication skills for documentation,…