DigitalOcean is hiring a Staff Customer Success Engineer - Database to represent the pinnacle of technical expertise within our Support organization. This role serves as the ultimate authority for complex customer challenges, leveraging deep database and cloud infrastructure knowledge to drive customer success, retention, and expansion.
What You'll Do
- Serve as the ultimate escalation point for complex, business-critical database and cloud infrastructure issues, coordinating cross-functional responses.
- Architect enterprise-grade database solutions for customers operating large-scale workloads.
- Lead hands-on support for database and cloud infrastructure issues across MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, Kafka and OpenSearch.
- Act as a trusted technical advisor to largest customers and strategic partners.
- Analyze customer database and cloud architectures to identify performance bottlenecks and optimize configurations.
- Build detailed infrastructure diagrams and explain architectural decisions clearly.
- Partner with Technical Account Managers, Solution Architects and Sales to define customer success plans.
- Conduct hands-on technical workshops, troubleshooting sessions, and proofs-of-concept.
- Prepare and document Database best practices for customer migrations.
- Advocate for customer feedback to inform new Database-related platform features.
- Mentor and develop IC1-IC3 engineers through structured coaching and pair troubleshooting.
- Design and implement support frameworks including escalation workflows and automation tools.
- Create authoritative technical documentation including architectural guides and runbooks.
- Lead critical incident response for platform-wide or high-impact customer issues.
- Represent Support in cross-functional initiatives and strategic planning sessions.
- Participate in an operational on-call rotation to support critical escalations.
What We're Looking For
- Extensive experience in cloud infrastructure and database support, with a track record of resolving complex production issues in high-scale environments.
- Demonstrated expertise supporting mission-critical workloads across PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, and familiarity with Kafka and OpenSearch.
- Strong foundational knowledge of Linux, distributed systems, and networking in cloud environments.
- In-depth understanding of database architecture, including replication, sharding, and performance tuning.
- Proven experience in a senior customer-facing technical role or as a Database expert.
- Passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences.
- Demonstrated track record of developing effective technical solutions for customer business challenges.
- 7+ years of experience in software engineering, DevOps, technical support, or solutions engineering.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Highly motivated with a proactive mindset.
- Strong automation mindset with proficiency in programming or scripting languages like Python, Bash, or Go.
Nice to Have
- Proven experience contributing to open-source projects in the database ecosystem.
- Advanced knowledge of cloud providers and tools (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform) and multi-cloud environments.
- Active participation in Databases or cloud-native communities.
- Experience creating tools or frameworks that enhance Database migrations or operational efficiency.
- Published articles or blogs on Database best practices or migration strategies.
- Hands-on experience with Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform, Helm, or Ansible.
Technical Stack
- Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, Kafka, OpenSearch
- Systems: Linux
- Languages: Python, Bash, Go
- Infrastructure Tools: Terraform, Helm, Ansible
- Cloud Platforms: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform
Team & Environment
You will be part of the Customer Success Engineering team, reporting to a Manager, CSE Support.
Benefits & Compensation
- Compensation: $110,400 - $138,000 + equity
- Equity compensation to eligible employees
- Equity grants upon hire
- Option to participate in Employee Stock Purchase Program
- Bonus eligibility determined by company and individual performance
- Reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education
- Access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses
- Employee Assistance Program
- Local Employee Meetups
- Flexible time off policy
Work Mode
This is a remote position.
DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.
