Software Engineer, Database Infrastructure

Gusto

Database infrastructure engineer building scalable storage platforms for Gusto’s payroll, health insurance, and HR services. Owning Kafka, datastore migrations, reliability, and self-service infrastructure tooling.

Posted 8/15/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSenior💰 $222,000 - $245,000 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

Use this summary to align your resume positioning with the role.

Demonstrates extensive experience in building and operating large-scale infrastructure systems, with a strong focus on streaming infrastructure and non-relational datastores. Proven ability to optimize performance, manage migrations, and collaborate effectively across engineering teams.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Kafka Capacity PlanningDynamoDB ManagementDistributed Systems FundamentalsProduction Migration CoordinationInfrastructure Optimization

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Software EngineeringStreaming InfrastructureNon-Relational DatastoresDistributed SystemsCloud InfrastructureQuery OptimizationPerformance TuningData ConsistencyAutomationKubernetes

Soft Skills

Strong CommunicationCollaboration

Tools & Technologies

KafkaDynamoDBMySQLPostgresRedisValKey Caching SystemsAI Tooling

Industry Keywords

Infrastructure SystemsOperational Burden ReductionHorizontal ScalabilityData IntegrityService Extraction

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

CloudDistributed SystemsDynamoDBKafkaKubernetesMySQLPostgresRedisRubyRuby on Rails

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Build tooling and platforms for engineering teams to provision and access new datastores
Evaluate and pilot highly available, horizontally scalable storage systems
Own Kafka capacity planning, partitioning, performance tuning, and reliability at scale
Stand up and operate non-relational datastores such as DynamoDB
Coordinate migrations and topology changes across MySQL, Postgres, Redis, and Kafka with minimal production disruption
Drive efficiency and reliability improvements through query and consumer optimization, caching strategies, workload management, automation, and data consistency, integrity, and security standards
Participate in on-call and reduce long-term operational burden
Partner with product engineering teams and share operational expertise

Requirements

What you’ll need

6+ years of software engineering experience building and operating large-scale infrastructure systems
Deep hands-on expertise in streaming infrastructure (Kafka) and/or non-relational datastores (DynamoDB or similar) in production at scale
Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including partitioning, replication, consistency models, and failure modes
Proven experience coordinating production migrations or topology changes with minimal disruption
Experience running production cloud infrastructure, including Redis/ValKey caching systems and Kafka streaming platforms
Track record of driving infrastructure optimization at scale
Strong communication skills and ability to simplify technical complexity and collaborate across teams
Ability to operate in an AI-native environment and use AI tooling for query optimization, performance evaluation, and infrastructure automation
Bonus: Experience with self-hosted distributed databases on Kubernetes, horizontal sharding, or service/vertical extraction from monolithic architectures
Bonus: Experience with Ruby on Rails or similar MVC frameworks at scale

Benefits

Comp & perks

Competitive base pay
Health insurance
401(k)
Equity (RSUs)
Secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection required when working away from a Gusto office
Reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans