[Remote] Principal Engineer (Managed Database Services)

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. DigitalOcean is a cutting-edge technology company focused on simplifying cloud and AI for builders. As a Principal Engineer, you will lead the design and operation of scalable database platforms, ensuring high availability and performance while mentoring engineering teams and collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders.


Responsibilities

  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Research and integrate advanced capabilities (e.g., AI‑assisted tooling, MCP protocols) to enhance developer workflows and metadata accessibility across database types

Skills

  • ≥ 12–15 years in distributed systems architecture, database internals (storage, indexing, query optimizers), and cloud infrastructure
  • Hands-on experience designing and operating production-grade systems on one or more database services in the Cloud
  • Prior experience as a technical visionary in large-scale, mission-critical projects; ability to align technology strategy with business impact
  • Familiarity with infrastructure as code, deployment pipelines, and observability frameworks
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills with a track record of mentoring senior and junior engineers; translating complex concepts across engineering and business teams

Benefits

  • 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
  • Employee Assistance Program
  • Local Employee Meetups
  • Flexible time off policy
  • Bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance
  • Equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program

Company Overview

  • DigitalOcean provides a cloud platform to deploy, manage, and scale applications of any size. It was founded in 2012, and is headquartered in New York, New York, USA, with a workforce of 1001-5000 employees. Its website is http://www.digitalocean.com.

    • Company H1B Sponsorship

  • DigitalOcean has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships, with 8 in 2026, 30 in 2025, 8 in 2024, 9 in 2023, 22 in 2022, 11 in 2021, 2 in 2020. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role.

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