Staff Engineer Distributed Storage and Transaction

Staff Engineer Distributed Storage and Transaction

Sunnyvale, CA

At Yugabyte
, we are on a mission to become the default transactional database for enterprises building cloud-native applications. YugabyteDB is our PostgreSQL-compatible distributed database for cloud-native apps. Resilient, scalable, and flexible, it runs on any cloud and enables developers to become instantly productive using well-known APIs. We are looking for talented and driven people to join us on our ambitious mission and help us build a lasting and impactful company.

The transactional database market is estimated to grow to $64B by 2025. YugabyteDB is cloud-native by design, has on-demand horizontal scalability, and supports geographical distribution of data using built-in replication. This means that we are well-positioned to meet market demand for geo-distributed, high-scale, high-performance workloads.

Modern applications need a cloud-native database that eliminates tradeoffs and silos. YugabyteDB retains the power and familiarity of PostgreSQL by pairing its trusted API with a precision-engineered, distributed, cloud-native architecture. Even better, it’s 100% open source. Many of the world's leading enterprises are migrating from legacy RDBMSs (like Oracle, SQL Server, and DB2) to YugabyteDB, to meet their mission-critical app demands.

Location: Sunnyvale, United States
Team: Distributed Storage Technologies (DST)
Position Level: Staff Engineer

As a Staff Engineer on the Distributed Storage & Transactions (DST) team, you will play a critical role in designing, building, and scaling the core distributed storage, replication, and transaction foundations of YugabyteDB. You will work on some of the most challenging problems in distributed systems — including consistency, durability, fault tolerance, performance, and scalability — while collaborating closely with query layer, platform, and cloud teams.

This role is ideal for engineers who thrive in low-level systems work and want to shape the future of a globally distributed database.

• Lead the design, development, testing, and delivery of core storage and replication features in YugabyteDB.
• Write high-quality C/C++ code with comprehensive automated tests; actively participate in design discussions and code reviews.
• Troubleshoot and resolve correctness, stability, and performance issues in complex distributed storage and transactional subsystems.
• Improve database scalability and throughput as cluster sizes, data volumes, and transaction rates continue to grow.
• Build and streamline database management operations:
  • Horizontal cluster scale-out
  • Incremental and point-in-time backups
  • Online schema and index operations
  • Rolling upgrades and blue‑green deployments
• Identify and implement performance improvements across the storage engine, transaction processing, and replication layers.
• Contribute to the open-source YugabyteDB project, helping evolve its storage architecture and operational reliability.
• Mentor and technically influence other engineers in distributed systems design, performance engineering, and systems-level debugging.

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong foundation in systems programming using C/C++.
• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science (or related field), or equivalent practical experience.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including:
  • Replication and consensus
  • Transactions and consistency models
  • Fault tolerance and recovery
• Experience working on storage engines, databases, or other infrastructure-level systems.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to operate effectively in a collaborative, distributed team environment.

• Hands‑on experience with distributed storage systems, transactional engines, or consensus protocols.
• Familiarity with LSM-tree based storage engines, WALs, snapshots, or compaction strategies.
• Experience with PostgreSQL internals or other relational database engines is a strong plus.
• Prior contributions to open-source systems or database projects.

We work in a hybrid…