Senior Software Engineer

Senior / Staff / Principal Software Engineer | Remote, Portugal

Our client is a venture-backed tech company building a cloud-native platform that powers some of the most demanding transactional and analytical workloads in the world. If you want to work close to the metal on a system that genuinely needs to be fast, correct, and resilient under real production load, this is that kind of role.

You'll join a small, collaborative engineering team working directly on the database engine itself - not the layers built around it, but the core internals that determine how fast queries run, how well the system holds up under failure, and how reliably data moves through the cluster.

What you'll be doing:

• Building and shipping new engine-level features driven by real product and customer needs
• Writing low-level, performance-critical C++ with manual memory management
• Working on distributed systems problems at the heart of the engine - replication, consistency guarantees, and fault tolerance across clusters
• Improving query execution performance through vectorized processing techniques and compiler-level code generation
• Contributing to cost-based query planning and optimization logic
• Debugging deep, gnarly issues using tools like GDB and performance/flame graph profiling
• Designing and running thorough test plans across C++, Python, and SQL to keep the engine solid under pressure
• Taking part in code and design reviews with a team that genuinely cares about doing this properly

What you'll bring:

• 4+ years building and debugging system-level software in C++ or Rust
• A degree in Computer Science or equivalent hands-on experience
• A track record of building reliable, high-performance system software
• Bonus: understanding of database architecture, operating systems fundamentals, or experience with distributed systems managed via Kubernetes

Why this role:

• Few engineers ever get the chance to work inside the internals of a production database used at real scale. Levels are open from Senior through Staff to Principal, depending on your experience and the scope you're ready to take on. Fully remote, based anywhere in Portugal.