Database Architect (Consultant)

TL;DR

Database Architect (Consultant): Designing and owning the data layer architecture for a high-scale AT Protocol AppView with an accent on handling 500 TB of firehose-derived data. Focus on diagnosing PostgreSQL limitations, defining polyglot storage topologies, and delivering a benchmarked PoC for high-throughput social workloads.

Location: Remote or hybrid in Kyiv or Warsaw.

Company

hirify.global is a software development company providing engineering services and technical consulting.

What you will do

• Diagnose existing PostgreSQL failure modes and propose a robust, scalable storage architecture.
• Define a polyglot storage topology mapping specific workloads to appropriate engines.
• Design hot/cold data splitting strategies and ingestion pipelines for high-throughput firehose data.
• Establish sharding boundaries and multi-tenant data models for federated networks.
• Deliver a benchmarked Proof of Concept (PoC) using real query shapes and firehose data.
• Develop a comprehensive 3-year TCO model including hardware and operational costs.

Requirements

• Production experience operating distributed databases at 100 TB+ scale.
• Demonstrated expertise with write-heavy, fanout-heavy social workloads.
• Proficiency in at least three of: ScyllaDB, Cassandra, ClickHouse, FoundationDB, Redis, RocksDB, Kafka, or Iceberg.
• Strong SQL and Python skills with the ability to read Go, Rust, and TypeScript.
• Ability to provide a technical post-mortem of PostgreSQL failure under the specified workload.

Nice to have

• Direct experience with AT Protocol (PDS, relay, AppView).
• Experience with federated protocols like ActivityPub or Matrix at scale.
• Background in running stateful data infrastructure outside of hyperscalers.

Culture & Benefits

• Competitive salary and benefits package.
• Flexible working hours to support work-life balance.
• Provision of a personal laptop with necessary software.
• Access to corporate accountant and legal support services.
• Transparent, bureaucracy-free management environment.