Software Development Engineer, Storage Engine

ByteDance; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 162,000 - 317,000; Full time

Job summary

ByteDance’s LavaStore team is building a purpose-built local storage engine for large-scale cloud services, tackling high-write, latency-sensitive workloads and optimizing cost. The team handles KV storage engines, file systems, and tail-latency considerations with production ownership at massive scale.

We seek candidates with strong C/C++, systems programming, and distributed systems knowledge, plus familiarity with RocksDB/LevelDB or Redis-like projects; PhD is a plus for this role.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering or related majors.
• Proficient in C/C++, familiar with Python / Shell or similar languages.
• Proficient in systems programming, including system calls, IO performance tuning, and multi-threaded programming.

Responsibilities

• Participate in the design and implementation of high-performance KV storage engines and file systems for large-scale distributed storage & database system backends.
• Explore design and evolution of next-generation KV storage engine architectures for low latency and high throughput.
• Understand storage requirements across business scenarios and collaborate with teams to select suitable storage solutions.

Skills

C/C++

Python

Shell

Systems programming

Distributed systems

Problem solving

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/CE/EE

PhD in CS/CE/EE (preferred)

Tools

RocksDB

LevelDB

Redis

Memcached

Cachelib

Job description

Responsibilities

About the Team: The ByteDance Database LavaStore team builds and maintains ByteDance's purpose-built local storage engine for large-scale cloud services. Working at the intersection of storage engines, databases, filesystems, and performance engineering, the team solves highly write-intensive, latency-sensitive, and cost-sensitive infrastructure problems that general-purpose systems cannot fully address. The team combines systems research with end-to-end production ownership: it studies real workload patterns from database, key-value, and stream-processing systems, turns those insights into practical storage innovations, and validates them in production at massive scale. Its work spans LSM-based engine design, KV separation, garbage collection, WAL-oriented storage paths, append-optimized filesystems, caching, and tail-latency optimization. LavaStore has already been deployed at very large scale, with over 100,000 running instances, more than 100 PB of stored data, and over 2 billion requests per second, reflecting the team's focus on building simple, robust, and cost-effective infrastructure with measurable real-world impact.

Responsibilities

• Participate in the design and implementation of high-performance KV storage engines and file systems for large-scale distributed storage & database system backends;
• Explore the design and evolution of next-generation KV storage engine architectures to ensure low latency and high throughput;
• Deeply understand storage requirements across business scenarios, and collaborate with business teams to find the most suitable storage solutions.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering or related majors;
• Strong problem analysis, conceptual abstraction and design skills; proficient in C/C++, familiar with at least one of Python / Shell or similar languages;
• Proficient in systems programming, including system calls and library functions, network/multithreaded programming models, debugging, and IO performance tuning tools and techniques;
• In-depth understanding of storage system architectures and principles, such as LSM Tree, file systems (ext4/bluefs), etc.;
• Solid understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including consensus, replication, consistency models, and fault tolerance;
• Excellent ability to identify and solve problems, good communication skills, team collaboration spirit, and a strong desire to learn new technologies.

Preferred Qualifications:

• PhD 's degree or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering or related majors;
• Experience with asynchronous programming models and event-driven architectures, including callbacks, futures/promises, and coroutines;
• Prior development experience in any of the following: large-scale distributed storage / caching / database systems / single-node KV storage engines / single-node file systems;
• Familiarity with one or more common open-source projects such as RocksDB / LevelDB / Redis / Memcached / Cachelib; Prior RocksDB development experience is a plus;
• Prior development experience with storage-compute disaggregation architectures is a plus.

About Us

Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.

Why Join ByteDance

Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.

As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an \"Always Day 1\" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.

Diversity & Inclusion

ByteDance is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.

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

Job Information

【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $162000 - $316800 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 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; and
• 3. Exercising sound judgment.