{"id":52661,"url":"https://alion.io/job/zilliz-senior-software-engineer-database-systems","title":"Senior Software Engineer, Database Systems","company":{"id":12347,"name":"Zilliz","domain":"zilliz.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/zilliz","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":{"grade":"D","score":51,"open_postings":11,"ghost_share":0.818,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-16T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Redwood City, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":175000,"max":250000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":250000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":3,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"Milvus","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-05-15T20:50:27Z","employer_posted_date":"2025-05-15","last_verified_at":"2026-10-16T20:48:15Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":519,"trust":{"level":"ghost","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale","company_stale"],"days_open":518},"description":"The Database Systems team builds the core engine behind Milvus and Zilliz Cloud Vector Lakebase; spanning storage, query execution, indexing, load balancing, resource management, and distributed system architecture. We build the next generation of vector databases around three Natives:\nAI-Native: Born for AI and Agent workloads, with native support for vector data and semantic retrieval\nCloud-Native: Designed for elastic scaling and large-scale operation in the cloud\nLake-Native: Built on a data-lake architecture that works naturally with data at massive scale\nFor this team, scalability, performance, cost efficiency, and reliability are the core engineering goals.\nWhat you will do:\nDesign and build core modules of Milvus and Vector Lakebase, including storage, query engine, indexing, load balancing, resource management, and distributed execution\nDrive the evolution of the engine architecture, bringing Lake-native capabilities, elastic scaling, and large-scale multi-tenancy into production to support the next stage of growth\nDesign database capabilities for AI and Agent workloads, handling more complex access patterns, higher concurrency, larger scale, and lower latency\nOwn the stability of Zilliz Cloud, working closely with cloud platform and product engineering teams to bring engine capabilities into production and using real customer scenarios to drive engine improvements\nIterate on AI developer tooling, bringing AI into the engineering workflow to improve team velocity and system observability\nContribute to the Milvus open-source community through design docs, code, code reviews, and technical discussions\nWhat we are looking for:\n3+ years of experience building database systems, distributed systems, storage engines, query engines, search systems, or large-scale data infrastructure\nBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience\nStrong systems programming ability in one or more of C++, Go, or Rust\nDeep understanding of distributed systems and database internals, including consistency, scalability, performance, fault tolerance, query execution, storage, indexing, resource management, and engineering tradeoffs\nStrong engineering taste: the ability to judge what design is simpler, what abstraction will last, and which performance and cost tradeoffs actually matter\nExperience with large-scale cloud-native databases, storage systems, search systems, or data platforms is a strong plus; open-source contributions in databases, storage, search, Kubernetes, or distributed systems are a strong plus\nHow we operate:\nDeep systems engineering: We care about correctness, performance, simplicity, and long-term architecture, not just shipping features\nAI-accelerated engineering: We use AI to assist with coding, testing, documentation, and design drafts, but human engineering taste matters more: deciding what's worth building, what design is simpler, and what abstraction will last\nHigh growth, fast pace: We move fast at this stage and value ownership, fast learning, and the drive to take on hard problems. This team suits engineers who want a steep growth curve and rapid leveling-up\n Fast and pragmatic: We work on hard database problems, but we ship them into real products used by real customers\nBenefits:\nCompetitive compensation (cash + equity)\nRegular bonus and equity refresh opportunities\nMedical, dental, and vision insurance\nPaid time off, including vacation, sick leave, and global reset/wellbeing days\nGenerous 401(k) and regional retirement plans","description_format":"text","description_chars":3565,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":3,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Retirement plans","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Databases & DBMS","Vector Search & RAG"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2025-05-15T20:50:27Z"},{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-26T18:15:55Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 1","filings_12m":1,"filings_prev_12m":1,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":77500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-15T11:24:14+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":7,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.234,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":518,"expected_fill_days":37,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","ghost","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-16T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":250000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/zilliz-senior-software-engineer-database-systems","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/zilliz-senior-software-engineer-database-systems.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-17T00:40:17Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":912,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-18T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":12347},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=12347"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fzilliz-senior-software-engineer-database-systems"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fzilliz-senior-software-engineer-database-systems"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fzilliz-senior-software-engineer-database-systems"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/zilliz-senior-software-engineer-database-systems\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fzilliz-senior-software-engineer-database-systems"}]}