Category-defining tech. Career-defining work.
For more than a decade, Cockroach Labs has built database technology trusted to power some of the world's most mission-critical applications. Now, as AI transforms how software is created and operated, the infrastructure behind it has to keep pace. Cockroach Continuum is built to meet this moment, bringing individual databases together into one fleet designed for agentic applications, where AI agents help teams provision, scale, and optimize workloads at machine speed.
At Cockroach Labs, you'll solve problems that didn't exist five years ago alongside people who believe the simplest solutions often require the most sophisticated thinking. Your work will run in production at some of the most innovative companies in the world. The people who thrive here are the ones who want to own that opportunity.
The Role
Databases must keep going no matter what. At Cockroach Labs, quality is our number one feature. We are software engineers on a mission to push our product to new frontiers. Our work has a broad-reaching impact on the engineering organization of over 100 engineers who rely on our tools and methodology to ship a top-notch quality product.
Test Engineering is expanding our investment in next-generation test automation and bug-finding techniques, utilizing both randomized and deterministic testing. Note that this is not a QA/manual testing role; all Cockroach Labs engineers write tests and obsess about quality. Test Engineering is a cross-functional team that aims to enable and strengthen the engineering organization by emphasizing correctness and performance testing.
The work encompasses three primary focus areas: Test Infrastructure, Exploratory Testing, and Performance and Scalability. Speaking broadly, Test Infrastructure enables automated test execution, detection of performance regressions, fuzzing, and much more. Exploratory Testing enables new bug-finding techniques such as static and dynamic analysis, metamorphic testing, failure injection, and others. Performance and Scalability enables at-scale benchmarking.
Some examples of recent and future projects:
- Mixed version framework utilizing roachtest and roachprod
- Failure injection testing (e.g., chaos-mesh, frisbee)
- Next generation of roachtest and roachperf
- Parallelized automated microbenchmarks via roachprod-bench
- Developing a static analysis framework for concurrency bugs
- Large-scale benchmarking and performance testing
- Automated flaky test detection and quarantining
The ideal candidate will have worked with massively complex codebases and possesses broad experience in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and automated testing.
You Will
- Develop test strategies and methodologies.
- Build and scale test infrastructure.
- Build tools and frameworks to find bugs in complex distributed systems.
- Build static and dynamic analyzers.
- Perform at-scale cloud benchmarking.
- Prioritize and execute test suites that are representative of customers’ workloads.
- Rigorous validation habits and deep domain expertise applied to all AI-assisted output.
- A clear understanding of where AI can be safely integrated and where it introduces unacceptable risk.
- Final authority over everything that goes to production — AI assists your work; it does not replace your judgment.
The Expectations
In your first 30 days, you will become an integrated member of our engineering team. You’ll become familiar with our production systems, software development workflows, and the architectures of CockroachDB and CockroachDB Cloud. We believe that it’s essential for you to take the first month to get to know our technology and our company. You’ll work on a “starter project” to help you learn about a particular area and start to get the lay of the land.
After your first month, you will align with the team’s development objectives and own a medium-sized project to completion.
By the end of the third month, you will be a fully contributing member of the Test Engineering team. You will also have developed enough familiarity with our engineering processes to propose and scope future projects.
You Have
- 8+ years of experience as a software engineer writing clean, idiomatic code.
- 1+ years of hands-on experience with GCP or AWS.
- Experience with one of the following: Database or Distributed Systems Testing, Static Code analysis, Failure mode analysis.
- Exceptional communication skills and a collaborative mindset.
- BS in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
The Team
Reporting to Stan Rosenberg - Director of Engineering
Stan is an experienced engineering leader, having built and scaled high-performing engineering teams and distributed systems at high-tech startups. Prior, he worked as a software engineer and a researcher in formal methods. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology. In his free time, he enjoys exploring outdoors while dreaming about days when software works as reliably as a bridge.
BabuSrithar - Site Lead, India
BabuSrithar is the Site Leader for India. He is responsible for our growth strategy and is a cultural champion in the region. He is passionate about building high-quality software products and lean teams by leveraging everyone's potential. He enjoys working with people and learning along the way. Before joining Cockroach Labs, BabuSrithar held senior leadership positions at companies like Nutanix, Clumio and recently he was VP of engineering at Apty where he led the engineering globally. When not at work, he enjoys his time with his 3-year-old and family.
Isaac Wong - EVP of Engineering
Isaac is responsible for the health of the engineering organization at Cockroach Labs. He partners closely with teams to ensure we have a balanced culture that promotes quality and innovation in pursuit of our goals. Before joining Cockroach Labs Isaac was in life sciences for 16 years with Medidata Solutions where he had a front row seat on the exciting ride from a 30 person startup to more than 2000 people worldwide. But the lure of distributed, resilient, and consistent SQL databases, along with the amazing technology and culture at Cockroach Labs proved too much. When not working he likes to draw, play the piano, and search NYC for cannolis with his wife and kids.
Cockroach Labs is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer building a diverse and inclusive workforce. If you need additional accommodations to feel comfortable during your interview process, please email us at accessibility@cockroachlabs.com.
Cockroach Labs has a hybrid work model, with Roachers that are local to one of our offices coming in on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays and working flexibly the rest of the week. While we’ve learned valuable lessons working remotely, nothing can replace the connection, creativity, and fun that occurs when Roachers get together and we are committed to fostering a workplace that encourages collaboration and allows us all to do our best work.
Benefits
- Medical Insurance
- Flexible Time Off
- Paid Parental Leave
- Mental Wellbeing Benefits
- Internet Reimbursement
- Wellness Allowance
- Food Allowance
- Office Commute Reimbursement
- And more!
