DigitalOcean Logo

DigitalOcean

Principal Engineer (Managed Database Services)

Sorry, this job was removed at 03:21 p.m. (CST) on Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Be an Early Applicant
In-Office
Austin, TX, USA
In-Office
Austin, TX, USA

Similar Jobs at DigitalOcean

2 Days Ago
In-Office
Austin, TX, USA
121K-151K Annually
Senior level
121K-151K Annually
Senior level
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Software • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Manage and scale global equity and ESPP operations end-to-end, optimize and automate stock plan systems, ensure SOX and international tax compliance, partner with Legal/Finance on ASC 718 and Section 16, support executives and deliver employee equity education.
Top Skills: AdpExcelFidelity PswGoogle SheetsWorkday
2 Days Ago
In-Office
Austin, TX, USA
116K-145K Annually
Senior level
116K-145K Annually
Senior level
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Software • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Lead design, implementation, and management of global benefits, wellness, and leave programs. Manage vendor relations, budgeting and financial modeling, analytics, compliance, open enrollment, and automation of leave workflows while partnering with Legal, Payroll, and Finance to support a global workforce.
Top Skills: ExcelGoogle SheetsWorkday Benefits
11 Days Ago
In-Office
Austin, TX, USA
160K-195K Annually
Senior level
160K-195K Annually
Senior level
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Software • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Build and own the Go-To-Market enablement function: design AE onboarding and pitch certification, create and maintain pitch assets, coach Account Executives through live call reviews and workshops, run recurring enablement communications, manage content systems, and partner with Product, Rev Ops, PMM, Sales and Marketing to align enablement with GTM priorities.
Top Skills: Ai/MlConfluenceHighspotSeismicSpekit

Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here.  We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world. 

As a Principal Engineer you'll spearhead the design, development, and operation of scalable, high‑availability, and high-performance database platforms across relational and non-relational managed services (Managed MySQL, Postgres, MongoDB, etc.) and scale-out variants that scale to petabytes of data. Drive architectural vision, technical excellence, and innovation across both backend systems and customer-facing interactions.

Key Responsibilities:
  • Architect and Build
    • Design and evolve the architecture of large-scale distributed database systems optimized for scalability, reliability, low-latency, and cost efficiency.
    • Architect solutions for storage engines, indexing, querying, caching, replication, and high availability, drawing from best practices in both relational and NoSQL paradigms.
    • Roll out new services by taking on a hands-on lead role as required to ensure timely delivery 
  • Technical Leadership
    • Establish and enforce technical standards, coding practices, tooling, and infrastructure guidelines across the database engineering teams.
    • Mentor other senior engineers, shaping the team’s culture of architectural rigor and operational excellence.
  • Cross-functional Collaboration
    • Work with product managers, stakeholders, and business leaders to translate strategic objectives into scalable technical roadmaps.
    • Guide customer-facing teams (e.g., consultants, support, sales engineers) to define database solutions and migration strategies aligned with organizational goals
  • Reliability, Performance & Scaling
    • Lead Operations Excellence for database services, establish mechanisms and processes that scale to the engineering organization while raising the bar 
    • Oversee availability, performance tuning, failover strategies, capacity planning, and disaster recovery for database platforms.
    • Drive automation (e.g., IaC, CI/CD pipelines, deployments, monitoring) to optimize operations
  • Innovation & Future Roadmapping
    • Research and integrate advanced capabilities (e.g., AI‑assisted tooling, MCP protocols) to enhance developer workflows and metadata accessibility across database types.
Qualifications:
  • Technical Experience: ≥ 12–15 years in distributed systems architecture, database internals (storage, indexing, query optimizers), and cloud infrastructure.
  • Domain Expertise: Hands-on experience designing and operating production-grade systems on one or more database services in the Cloud.
  • Leadership & Collaboration: Prior experience as a technical visionary in large-scale, mission-critical projects; ability to align technology strategy with business impact.
  • Automation Proficiency: Familiarity with infrastructure as code, deployment pipelines, and observability frameworks.
  • Communication & Mentoring: Strong written and verbal communication skills with a track record of mentoring senior and junior engineers; translating complex concepts across engineering and business teams.
Compensation Range:
  • $198,000 - $297,000

*This is a remote role

#LI-Remote

#LI-SK1

Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean
  • We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
  • We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
  • We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
  • We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
  • DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.

Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.

What you need to know about the Austin Tech Scene

Austin has a diverse and thriving tech ecosystem thanks to home-grown companies like Dell and major campuses for IBM, AMD and Apple. The state’s flagship university, the University of Texas at Austin, is known for its engineering school, and the city is known for its annual South by Southwest tech and media conference. Austin’s tech scene spans many verticals, but it’s particularly known for hardware, including semiconductors, as well as AI, biotechnology and cloud computing. And its food and music scene, low taxes and favorable climate has made the city a destination for tech workers from across the country.

Key Facts About Austin Tech

  • Number of Tech Workers: 180,500; 13.7% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
  • Major Tech Employers: Dell, IBM, AMD, Apple, Alphabet
  • Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, hardware, cloud computing, software, healthtech
  • Funding Landscape: $4.5 billion in VC funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
  • Notable Investors: Live Oak Ventures, Austin Ventures, Hinge Capital, Gigafund, KdT Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, Silverton Partners
  • Research Centers and Universities: University of Texas, Southwestern University, Texas State University, Center for Complex Quantum Systems, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, Texas Advanced Computing Center

Sign up now Access later

Create Free Account

Please log in or sign up to report this job.

Create Free Account