Database Research Scientist

Details

ClickHouse Labs is an applied research group that works closely with engineering teams to identify challenging problems in database systems and develop novel solutions. The goal is to advance the state of the art and translate research ideas into real-world system improvements.

About the Role

As a Research Scientist at ClickHouse Labs, you will work on high-impact problems at the intersection of database systems, distributed systems, AI, and systems software engineering while collaborating with experienced researchers and engineers. The role covers a broad range of problems across database systems research and engineering, including query optimization, execution engines, distributed systems, consensus protocols, materialized views, indexing and data structures, benchmarking, workload analysis, and emerging agentic workloads.

You will work on leading open-source database systems such as ClickHouse and PostgreSQL. You will investigate performance and scalability bottlenecks in production-quality systems, develop new algorithms and system designs, and evaluate them under realistic workloads and hardware configurations. Projects may involve improving query planning and execution, reducing CPU and memory overhead, increasing throughput and concurrency, scaling across distributed deployments, or redesigning system components to better leverage modern hardware. You will work closely with engineers to turn successful ideas into robust implementations that can be deployed and maintained in widely used open-source systems.

Researchers are encouraged to publish their work, contribute to open-source projects, participate in leading research conferences, and pursue ambitious projects with strong engineering and research support.

Responsibilities

• Conduct applied research aimed at advancing the performance, scalability, reliability, and functionality of open-source database management systems, including ClickHouse and PostgreSQL.
• Design and evaluate new algorithms, data structures, and system architectures for query optimization, indexing, storage management, query execution, and distributed data management.
• Develop high-quality research prototypes and production-grade implementations, and work with engineering teams to integrate successful techniques into open-source and production systems.
• Collaborate with database engine, infrastructure, and data-plane engineers to identify high-impact research problems and translate research results into practical system improvements.
• Analyze large-scale database workloads, performance traces, benchmarks, and production telemetry to identify bottlenecks and optimization opportunities.
• Design rigorous experiments and benchmarks to evaluate new techniques across realistic workloads, hardware configurations, and deployment environments.
• Communicate research results through technical reports, open-source contributions, internal presentations, and publications at leading database and systems venues such as SIGMOD, VLDB, and CIDR.
• Contribute to the broader technical direction of ClickHouse Labs by identifying emerging research opportunities and helping shape longer-term research projects.

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related field, with research experience in databases, distributed systems, systems software, or machine learning systems.
• Strong publication record in leading peer-reviewed research venues such as SIGMOD, VLDB, SOSP, OSDI, NSDI, or NeurIPS, with work relevant to databases or systems.
• Strong programming and systems-development background, including experience working with database internals or other large systems codebases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, ClickHouse, or comparable modern DBMSs.
• Proficiency in systems programming using C, C++, Rust, Zig, or a comparable low-level programming language.
• Strong analytical, experimental, problem-solving, and technical communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing or operating database systems in cloud environments such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, or Microsoft Azure.
• Familiarity with large language models, reinforcement learning, learned optimization, or other techniques at the intersection of machine learning and systems.
• Experience contributing to large open-source systems projects, particularly database engines, distributed systems, compilers, or storage systems.

Bonus Qualifications

• Familiarity with modern systems-development and verification tooling, including formal specification or model-checking frameworks such as TLA+/PlusCal, Alloy, or Lean.
• Experience with LLVM, eBPF, Python, Go, advanced profiling and debugging tools such as perf and sanitizers, or tracing frameworks.
• A proven track record of optimizing database systems via hardware acceleration such as GPU, FPGA, or CXL, including methods for offloading query execution, storage layers, and data-intensive primitives using CUDA, SYCL, ROCm, or specialized FPGA development flows.

Benefits

• Flexible work environment at a globally distributed, remote-friendly company operating in more than 25 countries.
• Employer contributions toward healthcare.
• Stock options for every new team member.
• Flexible time off in the United States and generous entitlement in other countries.
• USD 500 home office setup benefit for remote employees.
• Opportunities to engage with colleagues at company-wide offsites.

ClickHouse provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants and prohibits discrimination and harassment based on protected characteristics. Applicants should also review ClickHouse's applicant privacy notice.