Staff Software Engineer, Data Platform

The role

The Staff Engineer on the Data Platform team acts as the technical anchor for database architecture and reliability. You will set technical direction for designing, provisioning, scaling, and operating database systems including PostgreSQL, graph databases, and time-series stores.

What you will do

• Set technical direction for database systems including schema design, data modeling, and indexing strategies
• Own query performance across the platform and design observability systems
• Own reliability engineering for all data stores including replication, failover, and backup validation
• Design and own the migration framework for zero-downtime schema evolution
• Serve as the database expert for application engineering teams
• Mentor P4 engineers through design review, code review, and technical pairing

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with deep specialization in database systems and data infrastructure
• Expert-level PostgreSQL proficiency
• Deep understanding of database architecture trade-offs
• Experience designing zero-downtime migration workflows in high-volume production environments
• Experience with graph databases (Neo4j or equivalent)
• Proficiency with time-series or columnar stores (ClickHouse, TimescaleDB, or equivalent)
• Track record running database systems in Kubernetes or cloud-managed environments (RDS, Cloud SQL, or equivalent) at production scale
• Proficiency with Go or Python
• Track record of setting engineering standards
• Ability to produce clear architecture documents and drive database design decisions
• Experience mentoring mid-level engineers
• Minimum 25Mbps consumer grade broadband connection

Nice to have

• Experience building multi-tenant database architectures
• Background in cybersecurity or experience storing and querying vulnerability, asset, or network topology data at scale
• Familiarity with eBPF-based database observability tools or advanced profiling approaches
• Experience with vector databases or embedding stores for ML-adjacent infrastructure

Benefits

• Health, vision & dental care for you and your family
• Flexible vacation policy
• Generous parental leave

About the company

Horizon3 is a remote cybersecurity company dedicated to enabling organizations to proactively find, fix and verify exploitable attack vectors. The team is a fusion of former U.S. Special Operations cyber operators, startup engineers and operators, and formerly frustrated cybersecurity practitioners.