Member of Technical Staff (Storage)
Cockroach Labs · New York, United States · 6mo ago
Category-defining tech. Career-defining work.
For more than a decade, Cockroach Labs has built database technology trusted to power some of the world's most mission-critical applications. Now, as AI transforms how software is created and operated, the infrastructure behind it has to keep pace. Cockroach Continuum is built to meet this moment, bringing individual databases together into one fleet designed for agentic applications, where AI agents help teams provision, scale, and optimize workloads at machine speed.
At Cockroach Labs, you'll solve problems that didn't exist five years ago alongside people who believe the simplest solutions often require the most sophisticated thinking. Your work will run in production at some of the most innovative companies in the world. The people who thrive here are the ones who want to own that opportunity.
The Role
We're looking for a Software Engineer to join our Storage team. Storage is the team responsible for Pebble, CockroachDB’s storage engine. Storage is the bedrock of our database product, and is responsible for the safe, durable and efficient persistence and retrieval of data, on top of which the rest of the database is built.
Our team develops and maintains Pebble, an innovative Log Structured Merge (LSM) Tree storage engine, purpose built for Multi Version Concurrency Control (MVCC) data. Additionally, our team develops higher layer storage features for integration with CockroachDB, such as MVCC APIs for mutation and iteration, and the Enterprise Encryption At Rest (EAR) feature in CockroachDB. The team also has a hand in the development, operation and troubleshooting of our Cockroach Cloud product, as it relates to the various storage offerings of the cloud providers on top of which Cockroach Cloud runs.
You Will
- Contribute to the growth of CockroachDB through bringing your expertise and commitment to excellence to help build a database that makes data easy for everyone.
- Develop in Go, but if you don't know it, you'll learn while you're here.
- Improve the performance of CockroachDB.
- Work closely with other engineers and product managers across both the cloud and database teams.
- Work in an environment in which access to state-of-the-art AI-assisted planning and development is provided.
- Take part in a collaborative culture and exchange knowledge with a highly experienced technical organization.
- Ensure that CockroachDB remains scalable, survivable, and consistent as we continue to grow as a company.
The Expectations
In your first 30 days, you will become an integrated member of our engineering team. You’ll spend time learning about the Storage team’s domain, processes and people, as well as learning about CockroachDB and CockroachDB Cloud. We believe that it's essential for you to take this first month to become familiar with our technology and our company.
After 3 months, you will be fully integrated into the team and comfortable contributing to the Storage team’s execution in partnership with Product and Design. You’ll have built an understanding of the Storage team’s tech stack and feel comfortable with the architecture and components the team develops and maintains. You’ll understand the team’s priorities and roadmap.
After 6 months, you’ll be fully integrated into the Storage team and have a deep understanding of the tech stack and other areas of the Engineering organization.
You Have
- Experience working on complex technical products and have exposure to distributed systems, concurrency control, file systems, data replication, or memory management.
- Comfort using programming languages like Go, C/C++, Java, and Python. We use Go, but if you don't know it, you'll learn while you're here.
- A solid product architecture knowledge and grasp how a variety of team interactions may impact it.
- Experience (or strong interest) in adopting AI-centric development workflows.
- 3+ years of relevant experience is ideal.
- The discipline to use AI as an augmentation tool without compromising correctness, reliability, or system integrity.
- The ability to use AI to accelerate supporting work while maintaining an uncompromising standard for production output.
- Final authority over everything that goes to production. AI assists your work; it does not replace your judgment.
- A BS, MS or PhD in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
- Bonus: Experience with storage systems (e.g., preferably Log-Structured Merge Trees, Pebble, etc.)
- Bonus: Experience building, running and debugging large-scale distributed systems in production.
- Bonus: You want to play an active role in how we use AI to reduce toil and build high-quality software.
The Team
Reporting to Andy Xu - Manager, Engineering
Andy leads the Storage team within the Database Platform organization, where he oversees the development of Pebble, a Log Structured Merge (LSM) tree implementation (akin to RocksDB, but with innovative features for a SQL database). Based in Seattle with his family, Andy enjoys hiking, playing badminton, and spending quality time with his children outside of work.
Nick Travers - Director, Engineering
Nick joined Cockroach Labs in 2021 and leads the Database Platform group - Storage, KV, Server, Disaster Recovery, and Change Data Capture. Originally from Perth, Australia, he lives in Los Angeles with his family. Arsenal supporter, occasional cook, outdoors person.
Cockroach Labs is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer building a diverse and inclusive workforce. If you need additional accommodations to feel comfortable during your interview process, please email us at accessibility@cockroachlabs.com.
Cockroach Labs has a hybrid work model, with Roachers that are local to one of our offices coming in on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and working flexibly the rest of the week. While we’ve learned valuable lessons working remotely, nothing can replace the connection, creativity, and fun that occurs when Roachers get together and we are committed to fostering a workplace that encourages collaboration and allows us all to do our best work.
Benefits
- Stock Options
- Medical Insurance
- Vision Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Life and Disability Insurance
- Professional Development Funds
- Flexible Time Off
- Paid Holidays
- Paid Sick Days
- Paid Parental Leave
- Retirement Benefits
- Mental Wellbeing Benefits
- And more!
The annual anticipated base salary range for U.S. candidates for this role is listed in USD below. Salary is one component of the Cockroach Labs’ Total Rewards package, which also includes, for each employee: stock options, medical insurance, vision insurance, dental insurance, life and disability insurance, funds towards professional development resources, flexible paid time off, 11 paid holidays a year, 10 paid sick days a year, paid parental leave, a 401(k) plan, and wellbeing benefits.
We set standard ranges for all U.S.-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. Actual salaries may vary and fall outside of this range depending on factors such as a candidate’s qualifications, geographic location, skills, experience, and competencies. In addition, we are often open to a wide variety of profiles, and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted.
Salaries for candidates outside the U.S. will vary based on local compensation structures.
This position will remain posted until filled. Applicants should apply via our Careers Page.