turbopuffer is looking for database engineers who want to advance the frontier of search.
what you'll do:
design and implement improvements across one or more layers of our search engine (storage, indexing, querying)
intensive performance hacking: tracing, CPU/heap profiling, optimizing data structures, using SIMD, tuning IO pipelines, etc.
evolve our search primitives and APIs (full text + vector + reranking)
work closely with customers to win their workloads and fold learnings back into the product
write crisp docs
must have:
systems engineering
you've worked extensively in a systems language (Rust, C++, Java, Go, etc.)
you think in memory layouts, cache lines, and syscalls
you methodically work through problems until you've found the root cause
domain expertise — you're an expert in at least one of the following domains
search internals (e.g., inverted indexes, ANN indexes, rerankers)
storage engines (e.g., LSMs, WALs, MVCC, compaction, GC)
distributed systems (e.g., replication, leases, fault injection, simulation/chaos testing)
linux — you're at home in terminals, eBPF/perf, strace, gdb
typist — you can write well and explain complex ideas simply
human — you build trust and admit what you don’t know
nice to have:
multiple years of experience writing Rust
you've maintained or operated serious systems in production, at scale
you've made interesting contributions to the databases, IR, or systems communities (e.g., research, open source, speaking)
additional domain expertise in:
k8s and cloud infra (GKE/EKS/AKS, disks and networking, load balancers, observability)
security (multi-tenant systems, isolation, sandboxing)
tpuf is hardcore & whimsical. we value:
overstep > understep
show > tell
complexity is earned
showing up as part of our customer’s team
making stuff easy to react to
Skills Required
- Extensive experience with a systems programming language such as Rust, C++, Java, or Go
- Strong systems engineering knowledge, including memory layouts, cache lines, and syscalls
- Methodical root-cause analysis and problem-solving skills
- Expertise in search internals, storage engines, or distributed systems
- Linux proficiency, including terminals, eBPF/perf, strace, and gdb
- Strong technical writing and ability to explain complex ideas clearly
- Ability to build trust and acknowledge knowledge gaps
- Multiple years of Rust development experience
- Experience maintaining or operating production systems at scale
- Contributions to databases, information retrieval, or systems communities through research, open source, or speaking
- Expertise with Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure, including GKE, EKS, or AKS
- Security expertise including multi-tenant systems, isolation, or sandboxing
What We Do
turbopuffer is a serverless search engine that combines vector and full-text search using object storage. It is designed to make large amounts of data searchable for AI applications, offering high scalability, performance, and cost-efficiency by separating compute and storage. It serves as a critical infrastructure layer for companies needing to retrieve context for AI models, handling billions of documents with low latency.
