Senior Software Engineer II - Storage

Honeycomb is a distributed company building observability and developer tools. The Senior Software Engineer II - Storage will design and implement solutions for query and data storage infrastructure, independently deliver complex projects, support production services, and improve the performance, reliability, and scalability of systems storing and querying billions of events.

Responsibilities:

• Build and deliver high-quality solutions. You will design and implement solutions that power Honeycomb’s query and data storage infrastructure. Whether it’s improving query performance, evolving the Retriever service, or making our storage layer more reliable, you’re eager to jump in and add value where the team needs it most
• Scope and deliver projects independently. You’re comfortable breaking down complex storage and querying problems into achievable steps, surfacing trade-offs, and pulling in teammates when needed. You take ownership end-to-end — from design to production support — reducing toil and ensuring our systems deliver measurable customer and business impact
• Collaborate with cross-functional partners. You’ll work closely with Product Management and other engineering teams to connect technical solutions to product needs, from problem discovery through solution design and delivery. Much of our work is behind the scenes, but it enables every Honeycomb product experience, from Metrics to Triggers and SLOs
• Support our services in production. We believe in owning the software we build. Every engineer on Storage participates in on-call rotations, helps define team KPIs and SLOs, and proactively reduces toil by addressing reliability challenges before they reach customers
• Learn new ways to solve complex problems. As Honeycomb grows, so do the challenges of scaling our systems. You will explore new technologies, data storage techniques, and query optimization strategies to keep performance and reliability strong at scale
• Thrive on collaboration. You enjoy pairing, reviewing code, and offering constructive feedback. You model strong ownership and help your teammates grow, while keeping conversations forward-looking and focused on business value

Requirements:

• You've led the design of patterns and guidelines that improve performance and reliability, and you bring expertise in writing Go along with experience working on high-throughput or complex systems
• You learn by digging in — individually, in pairs, or as a team
• You ask questions to better understand complex systems, explore trade-offs, and believe in learning from incidents as a way to improve both technology and practices
• You tie technical decisions to customer and company impact, weighing whether work is necessary now or later, and considering how projects affect the broader business
• You guide engineers through code reviews and help spread knowledge across a team with diverse skillsets so that ownership of critical paths is shared, not siloed
• You thrive in a senior-heavy team, giving and receiving feedback with grace, and contributing to a culture where tough problems and hard conversations lead to better outcomes
• You can scope and deliver complex, multi-team projects while balancing production realities, proactively reducing toil, and ensuring systems deliver measurable customer value
• You're trusted to diagnose and resolve the toughest production issues across the stack, restoring reliability where others may be stuck
• You multiply impact by sharing knowledge, guiding adoption of new technologies, and driving foundational work that benefits Honeycomb engineering as a whole
• Please note we cannot currently sponsor or support visa transfers at this time
• Prior experience with database engineering is a plus, as is comfort with Kubernetes