Senior Solutions Engineer - Database Infra at PlanetScale in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
Career Trajectory: Solutions Engineer at a VC-backed, profitable database infrastructure company is a high-leverage career move. This role sits at the intersection of deep technical expertise and commercial impact — a combination that commands premium compensation at any future employer. It's a natural stepping stone toward Staff/Principal Solutions Architect, Field CTO, or even Product Management in data infrastructure.
Compensation vs. Market: The $160K–$250K base range is strong — senior Solutions Engineers at comparable database SaaS companies (e.g., MongoDB, CockroachDB, Neon) typically see bases of $150K–$220K. The upper end here, plus variable comp and equity in a profitable growth-stage company, is genuinely competitive and suggests PlanetScale is serious about attracting top talent.
Skills You'll Build:
- Vitess and distributed MySQL — a niche, high-demand skill given Meta's and YouTube's reliance on it
- PostgreSQL migration architecture at enterprise scale
- Technical storytelling and executive communication
- Python/Go/JS scripting for database tooling — transferable to SRE, DBA, or platform engineering roles
Green Flags: Profitable company (rare in this VC-backed space), small high-caliber teams ("p99" philosophy), early sales team positioning (high visibility), and a customer list that includes Block, Etsy, and Cursor signals real enterprise traction.
Watch For: "Early members of our Sales team" implies a scaling phase — expect some process ambiguity. The dual EMEA/NA coverage suggests potential for extended availability expectations.
Headquarters: Remote - EMEA, Remote - NA
PlanetScale is growing rapidly and reinventing the transactional database market. The PlanetScale platform offers both Postgres and Vitess clusters. Vitess, an open-source database clustering system for horizontal scaling of MySQL, enables businesses to efficiently handle large-scale data workloads — without sacrificing developer experience.
PlanetScale is backed with over $100M in venture financing from top-tier VCs including a16z, Kleiner Perkins, SignalFire, and Insight Venture Partners. We serve some of the most innovative companies in the world such as Block, Anysphere (Cursor), MyFitnessPal, Etsy, Kick, and thousands more. Our customers entrust us with what is often their most precious digital asset — their data — so the stakes couldn't be higher. We're looking for early members of our Sales team that can form deep partnerships with our prospects and customers to help them adopt and succeed on the next generation of database infrastructure.
What's the Job to Be Done?
- Partner with Sales and Customer Engineering throughout the pre-sales and post-sales journey as the technical expert helping customers solve their most challenging database problems.
- Lead technical discovery to match customers' business and technical objectives with PlanetScale's offerings.
- Design and execute proof of value timelines that deliver on agreed upon business outcomes and success criteria.
- Design database migration strategies and work hands-on with customers to execute migrations to PlanetScale's PostgreSQL and Vitess platforms.
- Assess workloads, analyze performance requirements, and recommend architecture, sizing, and optimization strategies.
- Build tools, scripts, and automation that accelerate migrations and improve customer onboarding.
- Create educational content including documentation, guides, blog posts, workshops, and videos.
- Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to advocate for customer needs and shape the platform.
These Attributes Best Describe You
- You have deep expertise in database systems including replication, high availability, sharding, performance tuning, and migration strategies.
- You're equally comfortable presenting architecture designs to executives and writing scripts to automate migration tasks.
- You thrive in customer-facing situations and translate technical concepts into business value for diverse audiences.
- You're self-motivated and can manage multiple engagements simultaneously with minimal oversight.
- You enjoy creating content and sharing knowledge through various formats.
- You're comfortable with occasional travel (less than 20%).
What You Will Need
- 5+ years of hands-on experience with MySQL or PostgreSQL in production, including operations, performance tuning, and troubleshooting OR
- 5+ years of experience supporting customers with MySQL or PostgreSQL workloads where you advised on operations, performance tuning, and troubleshooting
- Experience working with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure, or OCI)
- Proven success in customer-facing technical roles such as Solutions Architect, Sales Engineer, or Technical Account Manager
- Strong understanding of database migration strategies and tooling
- Experience evaluating database solutions including architecture reviews, capacity planning, and performance analysis
- Ability to write scripts and tools in Python, Go, or JavaScript
- Experience creating technical content such as documentation, tutorials, or blog posts
What Else Will Help You Be Successful
- Experience with AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) or logical replication tools
- Knowledge of Vitess, database sharding, or distributed database systems
- Familiarity with Kubernetes and cloud-native architectures
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform or CloudFormation
- Contributions to open-source projects or active participation in database communities
- Public speaking experience at conferences or meetups
Why PlanetScale
We're redefining how high-growth companies manage data at scale — and we work with some of the most exciting brands in gaming, consumer tech, and B2B SaaS. As a Solutions Engineer, you'll guide customers through transformational database migrations and help them unlock the full power of PlanetScale's platform.
PlanetScale is a profitable company with a philosophy centered around building small teams of p99 individuals and is recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in America.
At PlanetScale we believe in supporting people to do their best work and thrive no matter the location. Our mission is to build a diverse, equitable, and inclusive company. We strive to build an inclusive environment where all people feel that they are equally respected and valued, whether they are a candidate or an employee. We welcome applicants of any educational background, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, age, citizenship, socioeconomic status, disability, pregnancy status, and veteran status.
If you have a disability, please let us know if there's any way we can make the interview process better for you; we're happy to accommodate!
Total Compensation and Pay Transparency
An employee's total compensation consists of base salary + variable comp where appropriate + benefits + equity. A member of our Talent Acquisition team will be happy to answer any further questions when we engage with you to begin the interview process.
Base salary range: $160,000 - $250,000 USD
To apply: https://weworkremotely.com/remote-jobs/planetscale-solutions-engineer
Frequently Asked Questions
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