Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure - Datastores

Details

At Coinbase our mission is to increase economic freedom in the world. The Datastores team engineers the critical database infrastructure that powers every product, transaction, and user interaction at global scale. This Staff Software Engineer role is a technical leadership position responsible for designing, operating, and evolving distributed database systems (OLTP, analytics, caching) that handle millions of requests per second. The role is remote-first but not remote-only: in-person participation is required throughout the year for team and company offsites.

Responsibilities

• Architect and pioneer the next generation of Coinbase’s distributed database technologies (examples listed: MongoDB, Postgres, DynamoDB, ClickHouse, Redis), building and running highly available services that handle millions of requests per second.
• Drive the evolution of core database systems, pursuing improvements in scalability, reliability, performance, and cost efficiency to meet global demand.
• Serve as a technical leader and force multiplier: guide senior engineers and leadership on critical architectural decisions and anticipate future business needs.
• Uphold operational excellence by delivering well-tested code, taking ownership of system reliability, performing proactive maintenance, and troubleshooting at expert level during on-call rotations.
• Research and integrate industry trends and emerging technologies to continuously enhance systems and define the future of datastores for Web3.

Requirements

• At least 8+ years of industry experience with a proven track record of building and operating scalable, fault-tolerant, and highly available distributed systems.
• Deep, hands-on experience with incident response and disaster recovery for large-scale database deployments in production.
• Experience in high-growth environments and scaling challenges (e.g., growing from 10 to 100s of engineers).
• Solid understanding of distributed database architecture, performance tuning, and reliability.
• Deep expertise in developing automation and tooling to manage large-scale distributed database systems with minimal human intervention.
• World-class communication skills: able to drive complex technical decisions and align senior engineers and leadership on long-term vision.

Benefits

• Target annual pay range: $218,025 — $256,500 USD (offers also include target bonus, target equity, and benefits).
• Medical, dental, and vision plans with generous employee contributions.
• Health Savings Account with company contributions each pay period.
• Disability and life insurance; 401(k) plan with company match.
• Wellness stipend, mobile/internet reimbursement, connections stipend, volunteer time off, fertility counseling and benefits.
• Generous time off/leave policy and the option of getting paid in digital currency.

Other details

• Job #: GPIN06NA
• Remote-first role with required in-person participation for team/company offsites and events. Attendance at these events is expected and supported.