Member of Technical Staff (Senior - Specialized Indexing)
CockroachLabs
Bangalore, IndiahybridPosted 1 month ago
Skill Required
EngineeringTechnical LeadQuery OptimizationSystem DesignData StructuresWeb AccessibilityR ProgrammingbuildingTestNGdesignC++Design PatternsjQueryRustSQLandGoAI
Key highlights
- 10+ years of experience building large-scale, production-grade systems.
- Work on cutting-edge AI-native indexing (vector, full-text, geospatial) within a distributed SQL database.
- Hybrid work model with designated office days (Mon, Thu, Fri) and flexible remote days.
- Comprehensive benefits including Medical Insurance, Flexible Time Off, and Paid Parental Leave.
- Collaborative global team environment.
- Opportunity to own high-visibility features that directly impact customers.
Role overview
The Specialized Indexing subteam within CockroachDB’s SQL Queries group designs and implements high‑performance indexing features—vector, full‑text, and geospatial—to support AI‑native and search‑driven applications. The role involves building, optimizing, and integrating these indexing systems into the distributed SQL engine, collaborating across teams, and owning end‑to‑end feature delivery.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain specialized indexing features for CockroachDB, including vector, full-text, and geospatial indexing.
- Improve the performance and reliability of existing vector indexing systems, including backfill, query planning, and import workflows.
- Partner with other database teams to integrate new indexing mechanisms into the query engine.
- Develop hybrid search capabilities that combine vector similarity and text-based search for modern AI and search workloads.
- Participate in design discussions, code reviews, and release planning within the SQL organization.
- Take full ownership of your work, from design through implementation, testing, and release.
Requirements
- Passion for databases, indexing systems, and high-performance distributed architectures.
- A strong background in backend or systems programming.
- Experience working on indexing or query execution systems such as vector, text, or spatial search.
- Solid understanding of data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems.
- Curiosity about AI-driven and hybrid workloads that combine structured and unstructured data.
- A focus on building reliable, maintainable, and high-performance software.
- Collaborative mindset and ability to work effectively with a distributed global team.
- Typically 10+ years of experience building large-scale, production-grade systems.
- Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous problems into scalable, production-grade AI-enabled solutions.
- A builder's instinct for reuse and extensibility — your output becomes a platform, pattern, or capability others depend on.
- Clear judgment about where AI should be deeply integrated and where traditional approaches are more reliable.
Nice to have
- Experience with Go, C/C++, or Rust is preferred.
Benefits
- Medical Insurance
- Flexible Time Off
- Paid Parental Leave
- Mental Wellbeing Benefits
- Internet Reimbursement
- Wellness Allowance
- Food Allowance
- Office Commute Reimbursement
- And more!
Additional details
- Category-defining tech. Career-defining work.
- The SQL Queries team is one of the most impactful and technically challenging groups at Cockroach Labs; the Specialized Indexing subteam works at the frontier of databases and AI.
- The role is based in a small, autonomous team in India, collaborating with engineers and leaders worldwide.
- Cockroach Labs is an Equal Opportunity Employer; accommodations can be requested via accessibility@cockroachlabs.com.
- Hybrid work model: Roachers local to offices work onsite Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays and flexibly the rest of the week.
- Expectations timeline: first month familiarization and small improvements; three months ownership of specialized indexing components; six months leading hybrid search capabilities and roadmap shaping.