Director Of Engineering (Distributed Databases)

TL;DR

Director Of Engineering (Distributed Databases): Leading the architecture, development, and delivery of core transactional, storage, and distributed systems components for hirify.globalDB with an accent on performance, scalability, and resilience. Focus on designing storage engines, optimizing distributed consensus (RAFT), and managing high-performing engineering teams in a cloud-native environment.

Location: Hybrid in Sunnyvale, CA (2–3 days per week in office)

Salary: $220,000–$250,000

Company

hirify.global is building a PostgreSQL-compatible distributed SQL database designed for cloud-native applications.

What you will do

• Define the technical roadmap and architecture for core components, including the storage engine (LSM/RocksDB), transactional layer, and distributed consensus (RAFT).
• Own end-to-end development, quality, and operational excellence of components deployed in Kubernetes environments.
• Recruit, mentor, and manage high-performing engineering teams, fostering technical ownership and collaboration.
• Lead scaling projects focused on write scaling, DDL concurrency, and achieving 99.995% availability.
• Partner with Product Management and Technical Leadership to define requirements and deliver integrated features.

Requirements

• 10+ years of software development experience, with at least 3+ years in a Director role managing multiple teams.
• Deep expertise in database internals, including storage/access layers, buffer caches, recovery, and indexing.
• Proven ability to design internet-scale, multi-tenant distributed systems.
• Hands-on proficiency in systems programming languages, specifically C/C++ and Go.
• Experience resolving complex performance bottlenecks and re-architecting systems for massive scaling.
• Must be based in Sunnyvale, CA for hybrid work.
• Valid US work authorization required; no new H-1B sponsorships available.

Nice to have

• Experience with PostgreSQL internals or PostgreSQL-compatible distributed databases.
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Prometheus, and public cloud infrastructure.
• Familiarity with NoSQL databases or technologies like Apache Bookkeeper, Spark, and Kafka.
• Contributions to open-source database projects or relevant research patents.

Culture & Benefits

• Market competitive cash compensation and equity grants.
• Comprehensive health and retirement plans.
• Unlimited paid time off (PTO).
• Culture of deep technical ownership, transparency, and continuous improvement.