Staff Software Engineer, Zilliz

Database Systems

$175-250k

Plus competitive compensation (cash + equity) and regular bonus and equity refresh opportunities

Kubernetes

C++

Rust

Mid and Senior level

San Francisco Bay Area

Office located in Redwood City, CA

Vector database for production-ready AI

Open for applications

Vector database for production-ready AI

101-200 employees

B2BArtificial IntelligenceData storageAnalyticsSaaS

Open for applications

$175-250k

Plus competitive compensation (cash + equity) and regular bonus and equity refresh opportunities

Kubernetes

C++

Rust

Mid and Senior level

San Francisco Bay Area

Office located in Redwood City, CA

101-200 employees

B2BArtificial IntelligenceData storageAnalyticsSaaS

Company mission

To democratise AI, Zilliz is committed to simplifying data management for AI applications and making vector databases accessible to every organisation.

Job

Company

Role

Who you are

3+ years of experience building database systems, distributed systems, storage engines, query engines, search systems, or large-scale data infrastructure
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
Strong systems programming ability in one or more of C++, Go, or Rust
Deep understanding of distributed systems and database internals, including consistency, scalability, performance, fault tolerance, query execution, storage, indexing, resource management, and engineering tradeoffs
Strong engineering taste: the ability to judge what design is simpler, what abstraction will last, and which performance and cost tradeoffs actually matter
Experience with large-scale cloud-native databases, storage systems, search systems, or data platforms is a strong plus; open-source contributions in databases, storage, search, Kubernetes, or distributed systems are a strong plus

What the job involves

Design and build core modules of Milvus and Vector Lakebase, including storage, query engine, indexing, load balancing, resource management, and distributed execution
Drive the evolution of the engine architecture, bringing Lake-native capabilities, elastic scaling, and large-scale multi-tenancy into production to support the next stage of growth
Design database capabilities for AI and Agent workloads, handling more complex access patterns, higher concurrency, larger scale, and lower latency
Own the stability of Zilliz Cloud, working closely with cloud platform and product engineering teams to bring engine capabilities into production and using real customer scenarios to drive engine improvements
Iterate on AI developer tooling, bringing AI into the engineering workflow to improve team velocity and system observability
Contribute to the Milvus open-source community through design docs, code, code reviews, and technical discussions

Our take

Vector databases have become essential for powering advanced AI applications, which demand high recall, low latency, and robust throughput. Zilliz has positioned itself at the forefront of this field with its vector database management system, Milvus.

Building on its initial success, Zilliz released Milvus 2.4m in 2024, which significantly enhances vector search capabilities. This version introduced GPU indexing, leveraging NVIDIA's CUDA-Accelerated Graph Index for Vector Retrieval (CAGRA), which outperforms traditional CPU-based indexes like HNSW. In 2026, Milvus 2.6 was released, harnessing even more power at a lower cost.

Zilliz's commitment to innovation is further demonstrated by the expansion of its Hybrid Search capabilities, including a beta version of sparse vector embeddings for more accurate and semantically rich searches. These advancements, along with the evolution of Zilliz Cloud, emphasise the company's dedication to pushing the boundaries of what vector databases can achieve and make the future of the company an exciting one.

Freddie

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle

Insights

27% employee growth in 12 months

Glassdoor (4)

Company

Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)

Aug 2022

$60m

SERIES B

Nov 2020

$43m

SERIES B

Total funding: $113m

Company benefits

Equity
Regular bonus and equity refresh opportunities
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance
Paid time off, including vacation, bereavement, and sick days
Generous 401(k) and regional retirement plans
Hybrid work model/Remote work opportunities available

Company HQ

Centennial, Redwood City, CA

Leadership

Charles Xie

(CEO)

Previously worked as a Senior Software Engineer at Oracle, before creating The Milvus Project. Serves on the governing board of the LF AI & Data Foundation.

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