Senior Software Engineer / Researcher, AI-Native database systems

ByteDance; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 202,160 - 368,220; Full time

Job summary

ByteDance seeks a Senior Software Engineer / Researcher to design and implement AI-native database systems in Seattle. You will architect storage engines for embedding ingestion, vector retrieval, and real-time AI interaction, delivering scalable AI-enabled data platforms.

The role emphasizes collaboration across research, engineering, and product teams, with opportunities to contribute to research publications and open-source projects within a cutting-edge infrastructure group.

Qualifications

• Minimum: Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Computer Science or related fields with strong systems or AI research experience.
• 2+ years in core database systems, large-scale distributed infrastructure, or machine learning systems.
• Strong coding and system-level design skills in C++, Rust, or Go.

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement AI-native databases that integrate structured, unstructured, and vectorized data.
• Design storage engines optimized for embedding ingestion, multimodal retrieval, and real-time AI interaction.
• Build scalable, distributed vector search systems with low-latency guarantees.
• Develop AI-augmented query processors that leverage LLMs for semantic parsing, intent understanding, and cost estimation.
• Collaborate on retrieval-augmented generation infrastructure and LLM memory backends.
• Drive innovations in learned index structures, self-optimizing databases, and AI-integrated transaction systems.
• Publish and contribute to open-source communities.

Skills

C++

Rust

Go

Education

Bachelor's / Master’s / Ph.D. in Computer Science

Tools

Faiss

Milvus

DuckDB

ClickHouse

TiKV

RocksDB

Job description

Senior Software Engineer / Researcher, AI-Native database systems

Location: Seattle

Team: Infrastructure

Employment Type: Regular

Job Code: A155897

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement AI-native databases that seamlessly integrate structured, unstructured, and vectorized data.
• Design storage engines optimized for embedding ingestion, multimodal retrieval, and real‑time AI interaction.
• Build scalable and distributed vector search systems with low‑latency guarantees.
• Develop AI‑augmented query processors that leverage large language models (LLMs) for semantic parsing, intent understanding, and cost estimation.
• Collaborate on developing retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) infrastructure and LLM agent memory backends.
• Drive innovations in learned index structures, self‑optimizing databases, and AI‑integrated transaction systems.
• Publish and contribute to broader research and open‑source communities.

Qualifications

• Minimum Qualification – Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Computer Science or related fields with strong systems or AI research experience.
• 2+ years in core database systems, large‑scale distributed infrastructure, or machine learning systems.
• Strong coding and system‑level design skills in C++ / Rust / Go.
• Deep expertise in one or more of the following areas:
  • Storage engine architecture (LSM‑trees, column stores, HTAP systems)
  • Vector retrieval systems, similarity search, and ANN indexing
  • AI infra or model‑serving infrastructure (especially for embeddings / RAG / LLMs)
  • Semantic search, agent systems, or AI‑native memory frameworks
• Ability to collaborate across research, engineering, and product teams to translate ideas into production systems.

• Preferred Qualifications
  • Experience with open‑source systems such as Faiss, Milvus, DuckDB, ClickHouse, TiKV, RocksDB.
  • Publications at accredited conferences (e.g., SIGMOD, VLDB, NeurIPS, MLSys, ICDE).
  • Familiarity with GCP, AWS, or Azure’s database and AI integration strategies.
  • Prior contributions to RAG, memory‑augmented models, or self‑tuning database components.

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $202,160 - $368,220 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short‑term and long‑term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems;
3. Exercising sound judgment.

Reasonable Accommodation

ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request