PgDog (YC P25) Is Hiring a Founding Software Engineer
🚀 PgDog (YC P25) is Seeking a Founding Software Engineer
PgDog is building a high-performance scaling engine designed specifically for PostgreSQL. We are a lean, San Francisco-based startup with a distributed global team, currently in production and serving a diverse range of clients from small startups to large enterprises.
📋 Job Overview
| Detail | Specification |
|---|---|
| Role | Founding Software Engineer (Full Stack) |
| Compensation | 225,000 per year |
| Equity | |
| Location | SF, CA, OR, or Remote (within CA/OR) |
| Experience | 3+ years |
| Eligibility | US Citizens or Visa holders only |
| Core Stack | Rust, PostgreSQL |
🎯 About the Role
"Hey! PgDog is a tiny database startup. The problem we are solving is massive, and the opportunity is even bigger."
We are looking for an engineer who is meticulous and detail-oriented, yet comfortable taking calculated risks. You should be someone who views testing as a tool for verification rather than a corporate checkbox. We believe the only way to truly validate a feature is to run it against real data in a production environment.
Crucial Note: We value independent thought. While AI tools are available, you must be capable of thinking critically them.
🛠️ Technical Focus
You will be working at the intersection of:
Rust&PostgreSQL- Distributed Systems
- Networking & Infrastructure
📅 Your First 30 Days
- Deep dive into the entire existing codebase.
- Begin contributing active code to the product.
- Engage directly with customers to gather feedback.
- Assist in identifying and acquiring new users.
🏗️ The Engineering Challenge
Our goal is to make Postgres scale effortlessly. We want to eliminate the need for users to rewrite their queries when moving to a sharded environment.
Key Objectives:
- Transparent Sharding: Ensure queries "just work" on sharded Postgres (refer to the Postgres SQL reference for the scale of this task).
- Data Redistribution: Implement in-place redistribution so Postgres scales with the fluidity of
CassandraorElasticsearch. - Dynamic Sharding: Transform sharding into a simple, "push-button" operation.
Work Distribution
The Tech Stack Philosophy
We rely on Rust for its type-safety and "fearless concurrency." We leverage the open-source ecosystem, but we aren't afraid to build a library from scratch and contribute it back to the community.
// Example of the kind of systems-level thinking we value
fn scale_postgres_cluster(nodes: Vec<Node>) -> Result<(), ScalingError> {
// Implement first-principles distributed logic here
println!("Redistributing data across {} nodes...", nodes.len());
Ok(())
}
👨💻 Meet the Founder: Lev Kokotov
Lev has been immersed in Rust for nearly a decade and has even developed a custom web framework for leisure. PgDog began as a side project during a period of unemployment; within a year, it evolved into mission-critical infrastructure. By enabling Postgres to perform tasks it wasn't originally designed for, the company has seen a growth rate in just a few months.
The philosophy is simple: nobody wants to migrate to Dynamo; they just want their existing database to work.
🎁 Perks & Culture
- Health & Wellness: Fully covered dental and health insurance.
- Flexibility: Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO).
- SF Local Life: If you're in the Bay Area, expect plenty of coffee, dinners, hikes, and bike rides.
- The Mascot: You'll get to walk a giant 90-pound dog (the inspiration behind the name PgDog!).
🏢 Company Profile: PgDog
Postgres is the world's most popular database, but scaling it in production remains a significant pain point. We are building the load balancing and sharding tools necessary to ensure Postgres is the only database a company ever needs.
- Founded: 2025
- YC Batch: P25
- Current Team Size: 3
- Status: Active
- HQ: San Francisco
