Manager, Software Engineering - Storage Platform

Figma is growing our team of passionate creatives and builders on a mission to make design accessible to all. Figma’s platform helps teams bring ideas to life—whether you're brainstorming, creating a prototype, translating designs into code, or iterating with AI. From idea to product, Figma empowers teams to streamline workflows, move faster, and work together in real time from anywhere in the world. If you're excited to shape the future of design and collaboration, join us! Figma's Databases team owns the foundational data layer that powers every Figma file, component, comment, and collaboration session. We operate sharded Postgres clusters at scale, build the tooling that keeps database operations safe and fast (schema migrations, provisioning, operational guardrails), and develop higher-level data products like distributed caching and streaming infrastructure. As the Engineering Manager of this team, you'll lead engineers who are the last line of defense for Figma's most critical stateful systems — and the first to build the next generation of database infrastructure as Figma scales. You'll partner closely with product engineering teams across the company, own reliability and performance for our data tier, and shape how we integrate AI into database operations. This is a full time role that can be held from one of our US hubs or remotely in the United States. What you’ll do at Figma: - Lead and develop engineers responsible for Figma's core database infrastructure, including sharded Postgres clusters, schema management, migrations tooling, and database provisioning - Own the reliability and operational excellence of Figma's data tier — drive incident response, postmortem culture, and proactive investment in system resilience - Set technical direction and roadmap for the area, balancing reliability investments with platform capabilities that accelerate product engineering teams - Partner with product and engineering leadership to prioritize work across competing demands — this is a foundational platform team that every product team depends on - Recruit, retain, and grow top infrastructure engineering talent — build a team culture where engineers do the best work of their careers - Drive execution through clear planning, regular reviews, and transparent communication of progress and risks to stakeholders - Collaborate with peer engineering managers across Infrastructure on shared operational standards and cross-cutting initiatives - Champion the adoption of AI-assisted tooling to improve developer experience around database operations — from schema guidance to automated migration safety checks We'd love to hear from you if you have: - 4+ years of experience managing infrastructure, platform, or backend engineering teams - Proven technical depth in distributed systems, stateful infrastructure, or data-intensive backend systems, with a track record of earning credibility with senior engineers and making informed technical tradeoffs - Demonstrated ability to ramp quickly on unfamiliar technical domains and apply strong engineering fundamentals - Track record of building or improving on-call culture, incident response processes, and reliability practices for production systems - Experience developing engineers' careers — you've coached people through promotions, navigated difficult performance conversations, and built teams that people want to join - Comfort leading distributed teams across multiple time zones While it’s not required, it’s an added plus if you also have: - Experience managing managers or leading multiple teams across related technical domains - Experience defining org-wide technical vision and strategy across multiple work streams - Hands-on experience operating relational databases at scale (Postgres or MySQL) — including sharding, replication, and migration strategies - Familiarity with AI/LLM-assisted developer tooling and how it can transform infrastructure operations - Background in adjacent infrastructure domains (caching, streaming/event processing, observability) that complement the database layer - Experience at a high-growth product company where infrastructure needed to evolve rapidly alongside the product At Figma, one of our values is Grow as you go. We believe in hiring smart, curious people who are excited to learn and develop their skills. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with the points outlined in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles. Pay Transparency Disclosure If based in Figma’s San Francisco or New York hub offices, this role has the annual base salary range stated below. Job level and actual compensation will be decided based on factors including, but not limited to, individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process (including skills and prior relevant experie

4+ years of experience managing infrastructure, platform, or backend engineering teams. Proven technical depth in distributed systems, stateful infrastructure, or data-intensive backend systems, with a track record of earning credibility with senior engineers and making informed technical tradeoffs. Demonstrated ability to ramp quickly on unfamiliar technical domains and apply strong engineering fundamentals. Track record of building or improving on-call culture, incident response processes, and reliability practices for production systems. Experience developing engineers' careers — coaching through promotions, navigating difficult performance conversations, and building teams that people want to join. Comfort leading distributed teams across multiple time zones. (Nice to have) experience managing managers or leading multiple teams across related technical domains; experience defining org-wide technical vision and strategy across multiple work streams; hands-on experience operating relational databases at scale (Postgres or MySQL) including sharding, replication, and migration strategies; familiarity with AI/LLM-assisted developer tooling; background in caching, streaming/event processing, observability; experience at a high-growth product company where infra evolved rapidly alongside product.