Engineering Manager, Query Engine

Summary

Join Ditto's Query Engine team as an Engineering Manager to lead and mentor a team of 5–8 engineers. You will be responsible for delivering high-quality solutions, contributing to the architecture, optimizing query performance, and shaping the team's roadmap. Collaborate with various teams to ensure seamless integration and foster a culture of trust and collaboration. This is a people management role with opportunities for hands-on contributions, focusing on enabling customers to get the most out of Ditto's SQL-like query language. The team is small but rapidly growing, offering significant impact and growth potential. International travel is required once a quarter.

Requirements

• Management Experience : 3+ years managing software engineering teams, including responsibilities like hiring, performance management, and career development
• Technical Expertise : 5+ years of technical leadership experience with a strong background in platform and database technologies, distributed systems, and similar domains
• Systems Programming : Strong experience with systems programming languages, preferably Rust or C++, and understanding of performance optimization at the systems level
• Distributed Systems Experience : Understanding of distributed systems concepts including consistency models, replication strategies, and the challenges of operating in eventually consistent environments
• Project Management Excellence : Strong project management skills including stakeholder management, resource allocation and scheduling, risk identification and mitigation, and the ability to deliver complex technical projects on time
• Collaborative Leadership : Proven ability to manage remote, globally distributed teams with strong asynchronous communication skills. Exceptional written and verbal communication to effectively convey complex ideas and align team efforts
• Proactive Leadership : A high level of self-direction, autonomy, and responsibility in leading teams and driving projects forward
• Ability to Travel: You likely will need to travel (including internationally) once a quarter for team get-togethers and design sessions

Responsibilities

• Lead, Mentor, and Grow : Guide and grow a team of 5–8 skilled and globally distributed engineers, supporting their technical success, career development, and personal growth. Provide mentorship and coaching to help team members achieve their full potential
• Deliver Excellence : Plan and deliver high-quality solutions that meet business and technical goals, focusing on query performance, reliability, and developer experience
• Contribute to Architecture : Be an active participant in the design and implementation of query optimization strategies, execution plans, and indexing mechanisms that work efficiently in distributed edge environments
• Optimize Query Performance : Drive initiatives to improve query execution speed, reduce memory footprint, and enhance the efficiency of our custom query language and execution engine
• Shape the Roadmap : Collaborate with product managers and stakeholders to build the team's roadmap, incorporating input from customers, engineers, and researchers
• Cross-team Collaboration : Work closely with the Database, Core Library, Data Sync, and SDK teams to ensure seamless integration of query capabilities across the entire Ditto platform
• Foster Culture : Set an example by cultivating a culture of trust, collaboration, and continual improvement aligned with Ditto's core values

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science or Engineering
• Experience building or maintaining SQL query engines, custom query languages, or similar systems
• Knowledge of CRDTs and their implications for query processing in eventually consistent systems
• Experience with property-based testing, formal verification, or other advanced testing methodologies for query correctness
• Understanding of mobile and embedded system constraints and their impact on query processing
• Experience with incremental computation, materialized views, or reactive query systems
• Familiarity with various indexing structures (B-trees, LSM trees, inverted indexes) and their trade-offs
• Previous experience leading teams working with Rust as the primary programming language
• Experience managing a remote, globally distributed team

Benefits

• Health, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance, plus a 401(k) and flexible spending accounts
• Private healthcare through Vitality, a pension plan, and region-specific coverage
• Flexible time off