Software Engineer, Databases (Technical Leadership)

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the long-term technical vision and architecture for Meta's MySQL infrastructure, including the MyRocks storage engine and MyRAFT replication layer
• Architect database system enhancements to support Meta's evolving AI workloads and large-scale data requirements
• Identify and resolve the most complex database-level performance, reliability, and correctness challenges that span storage, replication, query execution, and transaction processing
• Lead the design and implementation of critical database internals — including storage engine optimizations, replication protocols, query planning, and transaction management — ensuring correctness, efficiency, and long-term maintainability
• Establish extensible technical foundations, coding standards, and architectural patterns that improve consistency and velocity across database engineering teams
• Develop and operationalize testing frameworks, verification methodologies, and data integrity checks that prevent database bugs and reliability regressions at scale
• Leverage AI tooling and automation to optimize database performance, accelerate development workflows, and identify optimization opportunities
• Partner with product, infrastructure, and platform engineering teams to translate complex database requirements into durable technical designs, influencing roadmaps across organizational boundaries
• Define and track database-level metrics, SLOs, and performance guardrails that connect engineering outcomes to organization-level priorities
• Mentor engineers across the organization on database design principles, query optimization techniques, and storage engine internals

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 12+ years of experience in database systems engineering, including design and implementation of database internals such as storage engines, replication systems, query optimizers, or transaction processing
• Experience working on database teams in the industry, with deep expertise in database architecture and internals
• Experience architecting and owning large-scale database infrastructure used across multiple teams or organizations, including driving multi-year technical roadmaps
• Experience identifying and resolving complex database performance, reliability, or correctness issues spanning storage, replication, or query execution layers
• Experience defining engineering standards, architectural patterns, and verification methodologies that improve database system quality and consistency
• Experience communicating complex database architecture and technical strategy in writing and presentations to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Qualifications

• Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (e.g., prompt/context engineering, agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies
• Experience leading database migrations, schema evolution, or platform modernization efforts in large-scale production environments
• Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (e.g., risk assessment, bias mitigation, quality and accuracy reviews)
• Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements)
• Experience with database internals, like storage engines
• Experience with distributed database systems, consensus protocols (such as Raft or Paxos), or building highly available data infrastructure
• Experience applying AI and machine learning techniques to database optimization problems, such as query optimization, workload prediction, or automated performance tuning

Benefits

$219,000/year to $301,000/year + bonus + equity + benefits