Backend Engineer - Data Infrastructure

Akita (View all Jobs)

Remote-first

Please mention No Whiteboard if you apply!
I'm a one-man team looking to improve tech interviews, and could use any support! 😄


Interview Process

1. Bug bash 2. An open-ended exercise that involves brainstorming, building a prototype, and team Q&A 3. System design and behavioral components

Programming Languages Mentioned

Swift, Golang, SQL


At Akita, we're making observability accessible to "99% developers."

A big part of the "one-click" observability dream is being able to process large amounts of API traffic real-time. We're looking for our first data infrastructure engineer to help build and scale our data systems.

What is Akita?
Today, understanding system behavior is hard. Developers have to instrument their systems; they have to understand logs, metrics, and traces. At Akita, we're building a new kind of observability solution that does not require an internal expert to install and operate. Our solution has two main parts: an eBPF-based approach for automatically watching API traffic and automatic inference over the API traffic

Akita was founded by Jean Yang, previously a CMU professor with over ten years of experience in programming systems research and over two years of experience with Taylor Swift memes on Twitter. Akita is backed by two of the top VC firms, as well as a major NBA player and some other incredible angel investors. 🏀😇

Who works at Akita?
We're remote-first, work together closely, and get the most excited when we build something that helps our users. We believe in shipping quickly and often, learning, and iterating. We love dogs and also cats. You can learn more about our team here.
About you
  • You're a builder. You love building software systems and have 5+ years of experience working with databases and data systems. You understand the space of database technologies and are comfortable operating hands-on with setting up and maintaining databases.
  • You're comfortable sharing drafts, getting feedback, and iterating. You have experience working closely with others and changing course based on feedback. You find this way of working fun.
  • You’re scrappy. You know what it takes to ship high-quality production software, but you’re also happy taking judicious shortcuts and even deliberately incurring tech debt to get the job done. You're looking for a fast-moving team that fits the way you work.
  • You’re versatile. You've gone deep, but you're flexible across your toolbox and are willing to do what it takes to solve a hard problem.
  • What you'll do at Akita
  • Understand Akita’s requirements for storage and advocate for particular technologies matching known or expected use cases. Implement a scalable solution for handling large amounts of customer data.
  • Lead our migration onto a time-series database. Create transition plan from existing databases and implement the plan by building necessary code or tools.
  • Set up and configure/tune databases (parameters, access control, auditing, indexes, etc.).
  • Monitor database health and scalability. Optimize costs.
  • Assist other engineers with usage of ORM or other database bindings. Act as a subject-matter expert for writing queries or designing schemata, or performing proof-of-concept experiments.
  • You're a good fit if you have
  • 5+ years experience with setting up, monitoring, and scaling databases.
  • Experience with more than one storage or database technology such as: SQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, DyanamoDB, Redshift, ElasticSearch, FoundationDB, Couchbase, Cassandra, Bigtable, MarkLogic, CockroachDB, Spanner, Firebase, Databricks.
  • Experience writing and optimizing database queries, making schema changes.
  • Experience with database administration and troubleshooting: have either set up or helped run a database cluster.
  • Strong attention to detail.
  • Ability to collaborate remotely under ambiguity.
  • Ability to prioritize work in a dynamic environment.
  • You'll have an edge if you have
  • Experience with Spark, Flink, Hadoop, Ceph, S3 or other object storage, Airflow, ELK, Kafka.
  • Experience with a database migration.
  • Not necessary for this role
  • College degree
  • Tech lead experience
  • Experience with big data systems
  • Past experience working at a startup
  • Tech stack
  • Go
  • PostgreSQL (for now!)
  • Docker; Kubernetes
  • AWS; Terraform
  • Benefits
  • Competitive salary and equity packages.
  • Generous health and dental insurance. 401(k) plan.
  • Work from anywhere in the US, as long as there is a significant overlap with 9am-6pm Pacific time.
  • If you're excited to build build the future of observability with a small, capable team, we'd love to hear from you.

    Akita is an equal-opportunity employer.

    Please mention No Whiteboard if you apply!
    I'm a one-man team looking to improve tech interviews, and could use any support! 😄


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