Software Engineer, Collections Infra

About the role

You will own the backend systems that power Notion's database block and ensure they scale to support enterprise workloads and AI-driven write patterns. You will design and implement the infrastructure behind database blocks, including storage, indexing, and query execution, while collaborating closely with product and platform teams. You will partner with other engineers to turn product requirements into reliable, high-performance backend services that serve millions of users. You will be responsible for improving database load performance, reliability, and concurrency so that Notion can grow into larger deployments without degradation. You will use data and observability to drive decisions, isolate root causes, and validate improvements across production traffic. You will help define system boundaries and architectural guardrails so that Collections Infra becomes a durable platform for future product work. You will contribute to raising the quality bar for the team through better architecture, observability, documentation, and thoughtful trade-offs.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Design and build backend services that power Notion's database block as usage scales to enterprise levels and AI workloads increase.
• Improve database load performance and reliability by analyzing P95 and P99 latencies, tracing slow queries, and optimizing data paths.
• Partner with product and platform teams to evolve Collections Infra into a platform that balances internal developer needs with external customer experience.
• Own the systems that handle high-volume writes from AI agents and ensure they are reliable, observable, and maintainable.
• Implement microservices and data-layer changes that increase the flexibility and power of Notion databases while preserving performance.
• Use AI tools as a real engineering collaborator to explore debugging paths, generate tests, summarize traces and logs, and pressure-test implementation plans.
• Raise the quality bar for Collections infrastructure through better architecture, observability, documentation, and clear system boundaries.
• Work closely with senior engineers to understand complex problems, propose solutions, and iterate based on production feedback.
• Define and track reliability and scalability metrics to ensure infrastructure keeps pace with product growth.
• Contribute to platform thinking so that other Notion teams can build on Collections Infra efficiently and safely.

Requirements

• You hold a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• You have 3+ years of professional backend engineering experience with a strong grasp of performance, reliability, scalability, and systems that must hold up under real customer load.
• You are comfortable reasoning about distributed systems, microservices, and data-layer trade-offs, even if you have not worked on them directly before.
• You have practical experience with JavaScript or TypeScript and can ramp quickly in a codebase where those languages are primary.
• You are a gritty, truth-seeking problem solver who can iterate when initial approaches do not move P50 or P95 metrics, and you are motivated by finding the real bottleneck.
• You are comfortable reading architecture diagrams, logs, and traces to build context in ambiguous situations and turn ambiguity into steady progress.
• You use documentation, code, teammates, and AI to learn unfamiliar systems quickly and ask better questions that unblock your work.
• You are based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco or New York City and can work from our offices on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays as anchor days.

Nice to have

• Experience with database internals, storage engines, or query execution is helpful but not required.
• Familiarity with building or operating platforms that serve multiple teams.
• Experience with high-throughput systems that handle large volumes of concurrent writes.
• Exposure to AI-driven applications and the challenges of scaling agent workloads.

Practical notes

This role can be based in either San Francisco or New York City. We work from our offices on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (our Anchor Days) because we do our best thinking and building together in person. We're looking for someone who's excited to work alongside the team during those days.