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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Software Engineer, Superhuman Database Infrastructure - **Company:** Superhuman LLC - **Location:** Seattle, WA, United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Computing Platforms, Databases, Serialization, Distributed Systems, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Query Optimization, SQLite, TypeScript, Data Logging, Data Storage Technologies, Data Layers - **Published:** June 24, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.dice.com/job-detail/e78469a4-2a45-4abf-beb5-ba7244c94c1c ## About the Role * 8+ years of industry experience and at least 5 of those working on relevant technologies. * Has deep experience building or substantially contributing to the internals of a storage or database system - query execution, index management, storage engines, or transaction/consistency layers in systems like PostgreSQL, MySQL, RocksDB, SQLite, or comparable infrastructure. * Understands the tradeoffs in data layout, serialization formats, and access patterns at a level that goes beyond API usage - you've made decisions about how data is actually stored and retrieved under the hood. * Has shipped and operated storage-layer systems where correctness under concurrency is non-negotiable - you understand read/write ordering, invalidation hazards, and what "consistent" actually means in a distributed setting. * Understands write-ahead logging, crash recovery, and checkpoint strategies - and the tradeoffs between write amplification, recovery time, and storage overhead when designing for durability. * Brings strong instincts for performance engineering and cost-aware design: profiling storage operations, reasoning about cache behavior, identifying hot paths, and making principled tradeoffs between performance and operational cost at scale. * Can work across a large, complex system - the tables layer touches the sync engine, the formula runtime, the client-side rendering layer, and external APIs; you're comfortable reasoning about correctness and performance across those boundaries. * Demonstrates the instinct to simplify - the existing system carries real complexity and this role requires knowing when to work within it and when to step back and rethink the architecture. * Communicates clearly and influences across engineering, product, and platform - foundational infrastructure work requires building alignment, not just writing good code. * Is energized by the unusual challenge of building a flexible, general-purpose database for non-technical users - where success means it's invisible, affordable, secure, and fast for any workload a customer brings to it. * Has experience with query planning and execution - understanding how to evaluate filter predicates, select indexes, and push operations closer to the storage layer to avoid full scans and unnecessary data, * Has thought seriously about the challenge of unpredictable, variable workloads - designing storage systems that perform well across a wide distribution of access patterns, not just a single optimized use case. * Has experience with encryption at the storage layer, particularly multi-tenant or per-customer key isolation schemes - or strong familiarity with the concepts and a track record of learning adjacent domains quickly. * Has experience with collaborative or distributed systems that require eventual consistency or conflict resolution - OT, CRDT, or comparable approaches are a plus, though deep understanding of the consistency problem matters more than familiarity with any specific mechanism. * Full stack experience optimizing Typescript that runs both on the client and server. We invite you to share your knowledge, experience, and goals with us to help us find the best team match for you. Tell us your superpower! ## Description * Contribute to - and grow into technical leadership on - the structured data storage layer, including cell storage, row ordering, index management, view materialization, and query execution. * Help drive improvements to how the platform handles large, complex tables at scale: lazy hydration strategies, data compaction, cache invalidation, and the lifecycle of cell data through the sync pipeline. * Work on server-side query planning for database-backed tables - pushing filter, sort, and grouping operations closer to the data layer and away from the client. * Collaborate with the formula engine and sync teams to ensure correctness at the boundaries: formula dependency tracking, column state transitions, and consistent view state across concurrent operations. * Contribute to performance benchmarking and profiling practices for table operations, giving the team observable data to drive storage and query optimization decisions. * Raise the technical bar across the team - reviewing designs, mentoring engineers, and bringing database internals thinking to problems the team is actively working through. * Help define how structured data evolves on Superhuman Docs - anticipating the demands of cold storage tiers, per-tenant encryption at scale, unpredictable access patterns, and the flexibility requirements of a general-purpose application platform. ## Related Videos - [MySQL Protocol Features You Should Be Aware Of](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100267-mysql-protocol-features-you-should-be-aware-of) - [How building an industry DBMS differs from building a research one](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/768-how-building-an-industry-dbms-differs-from-building-a-research-one) - [Introduction to TXT](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/30-introduction-to-txt) - [Kubernetes and Microservices with Multi-Model Databases](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/382-kubernetes-and-microservices-with-multi-model-databases) - [Branch your database like your code: How schema changes and pull requests go hand in hand](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/350-branch-your-database-like-your-code-how-schema-changes-and-pull-requests-go-hand-in-hand) - [Fault Tolerance and Consistency at Scale: Harnessing the Power of Distributed SQL Databases](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1146-fault-tolerance-and-consistency-at-scale-harnessing-the-power-of-distributed-sql-databases) ## Related Articles - [How We Built a Worry-Free System That Runs for 10+ Years – And What We’d Do Again](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/751-how-we-built-a-worry-free-system-that-runs-for-10-years-and-what-we-d-do-again) - [How to Answer the Interview Question: “Why Do You Want to Be a Software Engineer?”](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/392-how-to-answer-the-interview-question-why-do-you-want-to-be-a-software-engineer) - [Dev Digest 120 - Apple and peers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/455-dev-digest-120-apple-and-peers) - [Dev Digest 121 - AI goes offline](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/456-dev-digest-121-ai-goes-offline) - [Dev Digest 139 - Soft and hard queries](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/487-dev-digest-139-soft-and-hard-queries) - [Developers share the most interesting tech they ever built](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/266-developers-share-the-most-interesting-tech-they-ever-built)