Lead Database Engine Architect — Hands-On EM

Coda; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Excellent health care

Disability and life insurance

401(k) and RRSP matching

Paid parental leave

Paid time off / holidays

Floating holidays

Home office stipend

Professional development budget

Job summary

Superhuman is seeking an experienced engineering leader to own and advance the calc engine and associated storage systems. You will guide a small team while staying hands-on, driving query planning, execution, and performance optimizations in a fast-paced product environment.

You will balance technical direction with people leadership, focusing on building a cost-effective, scalable enterprise-grade platform. A hybrid work model supports collaboration and deep work.

Qualifications

• Experience with query planning and storage-engine internals.
• 2-3+ years as an EM managing a small team.
• Desire to ship a real product, not just infra.
• Nice-to-have: TypeScript, SQLite, OT, WebSockets, OPFS, and React.

Responsibilities

• Invalidate, execute, and plan queries for the calc engine.
• Architect scalable infrastructure as usage grows.
• Lead a small team while coding and reviewing work.
• Profile, benchmark, and optimize performance at scale.
• Coordinate with teams building on the calc engine.

Skills

Tech lead

Hands-on coding

Database internals

Query optimization

Tools

TypeScript

SQLite

WebSockets

OPFS

React

Job description

Superhuman is seeking an experienced engineering leader to own and advance the calc engine and associated storage systems. You will guide a small team while staying hands-on, driving query planning, execution, and performance optimizations in a fast-paced product environment.

You will balance technical direction with people leadership, focusing on building a cost-effective, scalable enterprise-grade platform. A hybrid work model supports collaboration and deep work.