Staff Software Engineer (Infra)

About VSCO

VSCO (pronounced vis–co) is a platform that equips photographers with the tools, community, and exposure they need to expand creatively and professionally. VSCO maintains a rich and authentic creative environment that serves photographers at all levels – preserving a home for creative opportunity, inspiration, and connection.

At VSCO, our mission is to nurture creativity so you can make it. We empower photographers to connect with other creatives and businesses with our suite of creative tools that spans from mobile to desktop and across our global community. We are looking for humble overachievers and self-starters who are naturally curious, highly organized, and thrive in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment. We foster a culture of collaboration, inclusion, ambition, and progress.

About The Role

VSCO is seeking a Staff Infrastructure Engineer with a deep understanding of datastore technologies and general cloud infrastructure to join our Platform team. In this critical tech leadership role, you will support and develop new and existing cloud-based services that drive the VSCO experience.

The successful candidate for this critical technical leadership role will spearhead the development of technology that can be integrated into our core products. As a tech leader with deep expertise in cloud, database, and storage technologies, you will guide other teams in selecting the right technologies, both for current and future needs. Additionally, you will lead company-wide Engineering mentorship and initiatives that will enhance the overall effectiveness of our engineering team.

The day-to-day

• Be the owner of scaling, performance, and optimizations for all of VSCO’s current data stores and future ones (exposure to things like MongoDB, MySQL, DynamoDB, Redis/Elasticache, Elasticsearch, Pinecone, etc…)
• Design the schema for a microservices system architecture
• Provide thought leadership on database best practices, security, and performance tuning for engineering
• Evaluate alternative database and caching solutions and provide guidance on future technical direction

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience of professional experience, 5+ Years with a focus on data stores
• Expert knowledge of data stores and able to discuss tradeoffs with different teams and be the point of contact or advisory role for all things related to data stores
• Command of both SQL and NoSQL technologies
• Strong ability to build out infrastructure with AWS services and tools using Terraform
• Deep understanding of data distribution, storage engines, scale out of data stores
• Ability to orchestrate and standup deployments of various types of data stores in modern environments such as a k8s cluster
• Working knowledge of AWS Infrastructure and AWS Database solutions including; Redshift, DynamoDB, RDS (MySQL and Postgres), Elasticache (Redis/Memcached), DocumentDB
• Experience with Kafka/RabbitMQ (or any other asynchronous messaging mechanisms)
• Great verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to write services using modern languages (Go, Scala, Rust etc…) 
• Experience working with engineering teams and providing project guidance
• Ability to work with multiple teams and manage priorities
• Comfortable being an independent self-starter when needed however we love to see you lean into cross functional collaboration
• Work collaboratively with stakeholders across teams to understand the vision, technical direction, and roadmap
• Architect and implement best-fit solutions aligned with the company's strategy to deliver maximum value to our creators
• Mentor and lead others through the process of developing from idea-to-production

Nice to have's

• Experience with indexed search infrastructure (ElasticSearch), NoSQL databases (Cassandra), or key value stores (ETCD, Consul)
• Experience with time series databases (InfluxDB, Prometheus, Amazon Timestream
• Working knowledge of infrastructure management tools (Chef, Ansible) and source control systems (Git)

Job Perks

• A virtual first workplace with bi-annual company-wide travel events to connect and play
• Competitive Salary & Equity 
• Healthcare insurance, vision, dental insurance for employees and families
• Flexible Time Off
• Company-paid parental, medical and caregiver leave

Why VSCO?

We value the creative process and our employees’ opinions — input is encouraged, regardless of your position or title. We want to work with people who are driven and demonstrate initiative in taking our mission to the next level. 

We believe in building a safe place for creative expression and celebrating that which makes us human, welcoming unique and personal backgrounds and experiences. We’re proud to foster diverse perspectives within VSCO as we continue to build an inclusive culture.

Compensation

The base salary for this position will vary based on several factors, such as relevant experience, location and your approved internal leveling assessed during the interview process. The base salary range for this role is $215,000 - $230,000. Salary is one component of our total compensation package. This position also qualifies for equity (i.e. stock options) and is eligible for discretionary bonuses based on performance. The benefits available for this position include flexible time off, a 401K retirement plan, insurance (medical, dental, vision, life/AD&D, short and long term disability), and 11 paid holidays. We also provide paid sick time as required by state and local law. Additional benefits and perks contained in our standard employee benefits package are also offered for this position.

Please note: 

The application window for this role will be open until at least 4/4/25. This opportunity will remain online based on business needs which may be before or after the specified date.

Be careful of fraudulent job posts.

If you receive outreach from someone claiming to work for VSCO, please verify they are communicating through the proper channels (vsco.co email domain or through Greenhouse).
Note that VSCO will never ask for financial information or sensitive personal information during the application process.