Software Engineering Manager, Database (SmithDB)

About

the role We're looking for a hands-on Engineering Manager to lead the SmithDB team. This is not a pure people-management role. You'll write production code, review PRs at the systems level, make architectural calls, and be in the weeds alongside your engineers. At the same time, you'll own team health, hiring, technical roadmap, and coordination with the broader LangSmith platform. The ideal candidate has deep systems or database engineering experience and genuinely prefers to stay technical while growing a team.

What you'll do Write and review production Rust code across ingestion, query execution, and storage layers Lead architectural decisions on storage format, compaction, indexing, and query planning Drive performance investigations using memory and CPU profiling tools; own the path from profiling to shipped fix Design and harden the distributed deployment of SmithDB services on Kubernetes (multi-tenant, high-throughput, low-latency) Contribute to cloud object store integrations (S3, GCS, Azure Blob) and set the standard for how SmithDB manages data at rest and in flight Build and maintain observability for the engine itself: metrics, tracing, debug tooling Manage a small but growing team of systems engineers: set goals, run 1:1s, provide technical mentorship, and grow careers Own the SmithDB technical roadmap in partnership with LangSmith product and engineering leadership Communicate progress, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to the broader organization: you write concise, decision-ready updates What you'll bring 7+ years in systems or database engineering, with at least 2 years in a technical lead or engineering management role Production Rust experience — you can write it, review it, and have opinions on how to structure it at scale Deep understanding of database or storage engine internals: query execution, storage layouts, indexing, compaction Proficiency in systems performance analysis: memory allocators, CPU hotspots, lock contention, async runtimes (Tokio) Experience deploying and operating distributed services on Kubernetes in a production, multi-tenant environment Familiarity with cloud object storage (S3-compatible APIs, consistency models, cost/performance tradeoffs) Proven track record of managing engineers — you can recruit, retain, and level-up a team without losing your technical edge Nice-to-have: Experience building or contributing to columnar storage formats (Parquet, Arrow), OLAP query engines, or time-series stores Background in observability infrastructure or tracing pipelines (OpenTelemetry, ClickHouse, Prometheus) Experience scaling a system from early-stage to hundreds of billions / trillions of records

Compensation Salary Range: $215,000-$260,000 USD

Compensation Philosophy: We offer competitive

compensation that includes base salary, variable

compensation for relevant roles, meaningful equity,

benefits, and

perks. Actual

compensation and offerings will vary based on role, level, and location. Team members in the EU, UK, and APAC receive locally competitive

benefits aligned with regional norms and regulations.

Benefits

Benefits include medical, dental, and vision coverage, flexible vacation, a 401(k) plan, meals on in-office days in the US and more.

A meeting lands on your calendar

If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.