Staff Software Engineer - Database Engine Internals
Posted by employer 1 year ago
First seen on Joblaze 6 months ago
Last verified on the company career page 2 days ago
Skills & Technologies
Requirements
- Experience
- 7+ years
- Education
- PhD
Not disclosed in this posting: compensation, work arrangement, visa sponsorship.
Joblaze summary
In this role, the Staff Software Engineer will focus on designing and developing next-generation database systems, tackling challenges in query optimization, execution, and data security. The position requires expertise in distributed systems and a strong background in database technologies, ideally with over seven years of relevant experience. This role is suited for seasoned engineers who are comfortable navigating complex, long-term projects while mentoring junior team members. Databricks is known for its innovative approach to data architecture, making it an exciting environment for those passionate about advancing data solutions.
Joblaze insights
- Listed about 6 months ago — first seen on Joblaze April 14, 2026. Last confirmed on Databricks's careers page October 28, 2026.
- This exact title is also open at 2 other locations at Databricks: San Francisco, California, Mountain View, California.
Quick facts
- How much experience is required?
- At least 7 years of relevant experience for this Staff Software Engineer - Database Engine Internals role.
- What's the tech stack?
- Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: Apache Spark, Delta Lake, MLflow.
- What seniority level is this role?
- Databricks targets staff-level candidates for this position.
- Is this full-time or contract?
- Full-time for this Staff Software Engineer - Database Engine Internals role at Databricks.
From the original posting
P-1416
Our mission at Databricks is to radically simplify the whole data lifecycle from ingestion to ETL, BI, and all the way up to ML/AI with a unified platform. To achieve this goal, we believe the data warehouse architecture as we know it today will be replaced by a new architectural pattern, Lakehouse (CIDR 2021 paper), open platforms that unify data warehousing and advanced analytics. This new architecture will help address several major challenges, including data staleness, reliability, total cost of ownership, data lock-in, and limited use-case support.
To achieve this vision, Databricks is building the next generation (decoupled) query engine and structured storage system that can outperform specialized data warehouses in relational query performance. Yet we will retain the expressiveness and robustness of general purpose systems such as Apache Spark™ to support diverse workloads ranging from ETL to data science. You will be part of this multi-year journey.
As part of this team, you will design these next-generation systems that leapfrog state-of-the-art within the following areas:
- Query compilation and optimization
- Distributed query execution and scheduling
- Vectorized execution engine
- Data security
- Resource management
- Transaction coordination
- Efficient storage structures (encodings, indexes)
- Automatic physical data optimization
The responsibilities you will have:
- Drive requirements clarity and design decisions for ambiguous problems
- Produce technical design documents and project plans
- Develop new features
- Mentor more junior engineers
- Test and rollout to production, monitoring.
What we look for:
- A passion for database systems, storage systems, distributed systems, language design, or performance optimization
- Are comfortable working towards a multi-year vision with incremental deliverables
- Be customer-oriented and focused on having an impact
- 7+ years of experience working in a related system
- Optional: PhD in databases or distributed systems
About Databricks
BenefitsStandard company text repeated across Databricks's postings is omitted here.