Senior Software Engineer, Database (SmithDB)
$175k - $240k • San Francisco, CA • FullTime
Posted 4mo ago
About the job
LangChain is seeking a systems/database engineer to join its internal database team, SmithDB. This team is responsible for building a storage and query layer purpose-built for AI observability and evaluation. The role involves designing, optimizing, and hardening the system, which has rapidly evolved from an idea to a production system. You will work on critical aspects like execution, storage layout, performance profiling, and scaling to handle trillions of agent traces, contributing to a greenfield system with ambitious engineering goals.
Responsibilities
- Engineer performant Rust code for ingestion and query execution.
- Optimize for cost and speed using memory and CPU profiling.
- Integrate with cloud object stores (S3/GCS/Azure Blob).
- Deploy distributed database services on Kubernetes.
- Contribute to observability for the storage engine, including metrics, tracing, and debug tooling.
Requirements
- 5+ years in systems/database engineering.
- Strong experience in a systems programming language, preferably Rust.
- Knowledge of database internals (query engines, storage systems, indexing, compaction) is a plus.
- Proficiency in systems performance analysis (memory allocation, CPU hotspots, lock contention, async runtimes).
- Familiarity with similar query execution engines is a plus.
- Experience with Kubernetes, distributed systems, and cloud object storage is a plus.
- Strong fundamentals in networking, OS concepts, and systems debugging.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Flexible vacation
- 401(k) plan
- Meals on in-office days (US)
- Competitive base salary
- Variable compensation
- Meaningful equity