💼 About the Role
We are hiring a Scale Engineer to scale and optimize the performance of our core platform at very large data volumes. Our PostgreSQL datasets are already in the tens of millions of records and growing fast. Your mission is to ensure our queries, indexes, caching layers, and global infrastructure stay fast, efficient, and resilient under load.

This is a hands-on engineering role focused on query optimization, database architecture, observability, and global performance. You will work closely with engineering, SRE, and foundation teams to proactively detect bottlenecks and design systems that prevent performance degradation before users feel it.

This role is globally remote, async by default, and built for engineers who take ownership of reliability and performance.

🧠 What You’ll Do

Audit and optimize Prisma queries across the codebase, removing N+1 queries, excessive includes, and inefficient data access patterns
Design and implement PostgreSQL indexing strategies for very large tables that will scale to hundreds of millions of rows
Build query performance monitoring and alerting using Grafana, Axiom, and Sentry to detect slow queries early
Implement and manage read replicas across multiple regions to reduce global latency
Deploy and manage globally distributed serverless functions on Vercel connected to localized read replicas
Design multi layer caching strategies using CDN caching, application caching, and query caching with Cloudflare and in memory systems
Establish connection pooling and query optimization patterns that scale during traffic spikes
Rebuild our application telemetry to have detailed insights into our code’s performance
Create runbooks and automated responses for common performance degradation scenarios
Partner with SRE to define and maintain SLOs and SLIs for database and API performance
Conduct regular performance audits and capacity planning exercises

💡 What We’re Looking For

Deep expertise in PostgreSQL performance tuning, indexing, and query optimization at scale
Extensive experience with Prisma ORM and its query generation behavior
Strong experience running production systems on Vercel serverless infrastructure
Experience implementing read replicas and high availability database strategies
Strong knowledge of CDN and edge caching configuration with Cloudflare
Hands on experience with observability tooling including Grafana, Axiom, Sentry, and synthetic monitoring
Production experience with Next.js and NestJS
Strong understanding of connection pooling, batching, and database connection management
Experience building alerting systems that detect performance regressions early
High autonomy mindset and comfort working in a remote, async-first environment
Clear written communication and calm incident communication

🛠 Must Have

Experience with zero downtime database migration strategies
Knowledge of edge computing and Vercel Edge Functions
Experience with distributed caching systems such as Redis or Memcached
Familiarity with load testing tools and performance testing methodologies
Experience optimizing cloud infrastructure cost versus performance
Ability to work in the Americas timezones
8+ Years of experience

👤 Who You Are

You genuinely enjoy performance and reliability engineering and like solving hard scaling problems
You take ownership of system reliability and are comfortable participating in on call and incident response
You are friendly, collaborative, and easy to work with across teams
You thrive in a globally distributed team and respect different cultures and working styles
You are highly curious and continuously learn new technologies and patterns
You stay calm under pressure and communicate clearly during incidents
You are proactive and look for performance risks before they become production issues

🧱 Tech Stack

Next.js on Vercel
NestJS on Vercel
PostgreSQL with Prisma
Cloudflare CDN and caching
Grafana, Axiom, Sentry, Checkly
✅ How We Hire: The Lean Hire Trial
We approach hiring differently. Nearly all full-time roles at Cal.com begin with a 30-day contract-to-hire trial, which we call a Lean Hire. This isn’t a test to prove yourself; it’s a mutual exploration. Think of it more like dating than interviewing.

💬 It gives you time to experience the culture, team, and work before committing
🔍 It gives us a chance to ensure alignment without long-term risk on either side
🤝 Many of our strongest team members joined through Lean Hire and never looked back

Success in a Lean Hire isn’t about perfection; it’s about curiosity, transparency, and seeing whether we thrive working together.

✨ Why Work at Cal.com?
We’re building Cal.com not just as a product, but as a place to do great work and live a good life.

🌐 Work from anywhere, anytime, fully remote & async
💸 Earn the same salary no matter where you live
📅 No standups, no micromanagement, no unnecessary calls
🪩 Real flexibility, take time for life stuff, no approval needed
💻 Work in your own flow, pajamas welcome
🧘 30 paid OOO days per year (wherever you are in the world)
✈️ Yearly team retreats in beautiful locations
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 People-first culture, stable, family-friendly, kind