Staff Customer Success Engineer - Database

DigitalOcean is a cutting-edge technology company focused on simplifying cloud solutions. They are seeking a Staff Customer Success Engineer to serve as a technical authority for complex database and cloud infrastructure challenges, ensuring customer success and retention through expert guidance and support.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the ultimate escalation point for complex, business-critical database and cloud infrastructure issues, coordinating cross-functional responses that span Engineering, Product, and Operations
• Architect enterprise-grade database solutions for customers operating large-scale workloads on DigitalOcean, including high-availability clusters, replication and sharding strategies, distributed database systems, and hybrid/multi-cloud deployments
• Lead hands-on support for database and cloud infrastructure issues across MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, Kafka and OpenSearch, ensuring high availability, performance, and reliability for production workloads
• Act as a trusted technical advisor to our largest customers and strategic partners, building deep relationships with their technical teams and understanding their business objectives
• Analyze customer database and cloud architectures to identify performance bottlenecks, optimize configurations, and ensure best practices for scalability, security, and resiliency
• Demonstrate strong understanding of database-specific requirements, including schema design, replication, performance optimization, and cloud-native compatibility
• Build detailed infrastructure diagrams and explain architectural decisions clearly to technical and non-technical audiences
• Partner with Technical Account Managers, Solution Architects and Sales team to identify customer needs, define success plans, and ensure smooth migrations
• Conduct hands-on technical workshops, troubleshooting sessions, and proofs-of-concept, guiding customers through complex cloud and database challenges
• Act as a trusted advisor, helping customers navigate technical complexities, adopt database and cloud best practices, and optimize production workloads for performance, reliability, and operational efficiency
• Prepare and document Database best practices to be used by the customers during and post-migration
• Advocate for customer feedback to inform the development of new Database-related features and platform enhancements
• Mentor and develop IC1-IC3 engineers through structured coaching, technical reviews, pair troubleshooting sessions, and career development guidance
• Design and implement support frameworks including escalation workflows, troubleshooting methodologies, automation tools, and operational best practices that elevate team capabilities
• Create authoritative technical documentation including architectural reference guides, troubleshooting runbooks, customer-facing solution guides, and internal training curricula
• Lead critical incident response for platform-wide or high-impact customer issues, coordinating cross-functional war rooms and ensuring timely, effective resolution
• Represent the Support organization in cross-functional initiatives, product design reviews, and strategic planning sessions, ensuring the voice of the customer influences critical decisions

Requirements:

• Extensive professional experience in cloud infrastructure and database support, with a strong track record of resolving complex production issues in high-scale environments
• Demonstrated expertise supporting mission-critical workloads across technologies such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, and familiarity with complementary systems like Kafka and OpenSearch in cloud-native architectures
• Strong foundational knowledge of Linux, distributed systems, networking and their application in cloud environments, with the ability to troubleshoot across the full stack (application → database → infrastructure)
• In-depth understanding of database architecture, including schema design, replication, sharding, backup and restore processes, and performance tuning for both SQL and NoSQL databases
• Proven experience serving in a senior customer-facing technical role, technical consulting, or Database expert with a focus on solving complex technical challenges
• Passionate about delivering exceptional customer experiences and fostering customer success
• Demonstrated track record of developing effective technical solutions to address customer business challenges
• 7+ years of experience in software engineering, DevOps, technical support, or solutions engineering roles
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences
• Highly motivated, with a proactive mindset and the ability to work independently and collaboratively
• Strong automation mindset, with proven proficiency in programming or scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash, Go) to streamline database operations, monitoring, configuration management, and performance optimization
• Proven experience contributing to open-source projects, particularly in the database ecosystem (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB) or related technologies like Kafka, OpenSearch, or database migration tools
• Advanced knowledge of cloud providers and tools (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform) and experience with multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments
• Active participation in Databases or cloud-native communities, including meetups, conferences, or forums
• Experience creating tools, plugins, or frameworks that enhance Database migrations or operational efficiency
• Published articles, blogs, or documentation on Database best practices, migration strategies, or cloud-native solutions
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform, Helm, or Ansible