Senior Platform Engineer

📋 Job Overview

At Tiger Data, formerly Timescale, we empower developers and businesses with the fastest PostgreSQL platform designed for transactional, analytical, and agentic workloads. Trusted globally by thousands of organizations, Tiger accelerates real-time insights, drives intelligent applications, and powers critical infrastructure at scale. As a globally distributed, remote-first team committed to direct communication, accountability, and collaborative excellence, we're shaping the future of data infrastructure, built for speed, flexibility, and simplicity.

🏢 About Tiger Data

Tiger Data, formerly Timescale, sets the standard as the fastest PostgreSQL platform for modern workloads. Trusted by more than 2,000 customers across 25+ countries and powering over 3 million active databases, we enable developers and organizations to build real-time, intelligent applications at scale. Backed by $180 million from top-tier investors, Tiger Data is building the new standard for data infrastructure, built on PostgreSQL, designed for the future.

🎯 The Role

We're looking for experienced engineers to help us build and maintain the platform for our managed TimescaleDB cloud services. You will work with a close-knit team, building and maintaining the infrastructure that powers our platform. Your work will be instrumental in developing our Kubernetes-based clusters and infrastructure. If you enjoy solving complex infrastructure challenges and automating workflows, this role is perfect for you.

✅ Key Responsibilities

• Maintain stability of control plane consisting of a distributed microservice architecture closely interacting with Kubernetes and cloud provider APIs.
• Debug and resolve complex Kubernetes issues across multiple regions and clouds.
• Automate database lifecycle operations (deploy, resize, upgrade, fork).
• Participate in on-call rotation, handle incident response, perform root cause analysis.
• Develop back-end features for Tiger Cloud, specializing in a distributed microservice architecture with an emphasis on platform and database expertise.
• Develop Kubernetes controllers, operators, and CRDs to extend platform capabilities.
• Enhance observability and monitoring systems.
• Improve deployment reliability, error handling, and client tooling (CLI interfaces).
• Work closely with infrastructure and software engineering teams to ensure platform scalability and reliability.
• Stay current with Kubernetes releases, features, CNI/CSI interfaces, and cluster orchestration tools.
• Contribute to system architecture for scalable microservices and distributed systems.
• Write idiomatic Go code with comprehensive unit and integration tests.
• Maintain >80% code coverage and enforce quality with golangci-lint.
• Perform peer reviews and follow Go/Kubernetes best practices.
• Ensure security compliance and vulnerability management.

📌 Required Qualifications

• 3+ years of software/platform engineering experience.
• 2+ years of Go in production environments.
• 2+ years of Kubernetes operations (building, debugging, scaling clusters).
• Experience in distributed systems and microservice architectures.
• Experience with our core technologies:
• Go (Golang): Advanced proficiency (Go 1.24+), primary development language.
• Kubernetes: Experienced Kubernetes user familiar with client-go and capable of developing CRDs and controllers.
• PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB: Administration, migration, replication, performance tuning.
• gRPC & Protobufs: Experience developing services and defining schemas.
• Infrastructure & DevOps Experience:
• Helm Charts: Template management and deployment automation.
• Kubernetes Operators: Operator patterns and controller-runtime.
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions, automated testing, deployment pipelines.
• Monitoring & Observability: Prometheus, OpenTelemetry/Jaeger, distributed tracing.
• Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, Pulumi, Apate or similar.
• Linux & Bash: Deep knowledge of operating systems and container environments.
• Kubernetes lifecycle: kOps.
• Database Experience:
• A user of PostgreSQL, capable of interacting with various libraries and not dependent on ORMs (required).
• PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB administration in production.
• Backup/restore procedures and disaster recovery strategies.
• WAL management and replication (streaming/logical).
• Query optimization, tuning, and parameter adjustments.

⭐ Desirable Experience

• Experience with TimescaleDB or PostgreSQL in production.
• Cloud provider expertise (AWS, Azure; both a plus).
• Experience with self-hosted Kubernetes clusters (not only EKS/AKS/GKE).
• Familiarity with CNI and CSI plugins (deploying, tuning, troubleshooting).
• Experience tuning Kubernetes core components (API server, kubelet, scheduler, etc.).
• Previous work on database-as-a-service or large-scale distributed systems.

🎁 Benefits

We respond to every applicant. We review applications fairly and objectively, and shortlist based on relevant skills and experience. We ensure clear and timely communication throughout your candidate journey. We maintain a rigorous interview process with a high bar, designed to give you the opportunity to meet various team members you'll collaborate with across our organization.

🛂 Visa & Eligibility

Tiger Data is an all-remote organization. This role is a full-time position, looking for candidates in the US or Canada.