We are looking for a senior engineering leader to own DigitalOcean's Managed MySQL service and engineering charter end-to-end. This leader will be responsible for the current Managed MySQL offering while raising the bar for reliability, performance, scale, durability, observability, security, and operational excellence.

This is also a strategic product and architecture role. MySQL remains one of the most widely adopted operational databases for developers and digital businesses. As AI-native applications emerge, MySQL will continue to serve as the system of record for user state, application state, billing data, customer metadata, product data, permissions, workflow state, and high-throughput transactional workloads.

The right leader will shape the architecture and technology strategy required to evolve Managed MySQL from a reliable managed database into a differentiated, AI-ready operational database platform.

The ideal candidate will combine strong product judgment, deep technical expertise in distributed systems and databases, and the rigorous operational standards required for managing mission-critical data services. The mandate is simple : make DigitalOcean Managed MySQL trusted for mission-critical workloads today and essential for AI-native builders tomorrow.

Responsibilities :

- End-to-End Ownership : Lead the engineering organization (availability, scalability, performance, security, and long-term architecture) for both Standard and Advanced editions of Managed MySQL on DigitalOcean.

- Operational Excellence : Set the bar for a tier-0 cloud database service with clear SLIs/SLOs and robust incident response.

- Production-Grade Platform : Drive high-availability architecture, automated failover, connection routing, and seamless scaling.

- Serve Demanding Customers : Support large-scale, business-critical workloads through improved tooling, VPC-based deployment, and clear reference architectures.

- Define AI-Native Strategy : Create the roadmap for MySQL as an operational data substrate for AI (agentic systems, metadata, and high-throughput ingestion).

- Strategic Architecture : Own long-term technical strategy, including replication, fleet automation, and multi-region resilience.

- Build High-Performing Teams : Recruit and lead strong engineering talent with a focus on ownership, accountability, and reliability.

- Cross-Functional Leadership : Partner with Product, GTM, and SRE teams to align the engineering roadmap with market needs.

- Technical Rigor : Champion high standards, simplifying complexity and preventing reliability debt.

What Success Looks Like (12 Months) :

- Tier-0 Reliability : Achieved clear SLOs and measurably improved incident response.

- Enhanced Scaling : Successful support for large, complex production workloads.

- Enterprise Support : Established migration paths and operational playbooks for large customers.

- AI-Ready Roadmap : Delivered a differentiated, AI-native database strategy.

- Organizational Maturity : Clear ownership boundaries and a scalable technical strategy.

- Competitive Positioning : DigitalOcean competes effectively on reliability and price-performance.

Requirements :

- 15+ years of engineering experience (cloud/data/distributed systems), 6+ years managing managers, and proven success operating high-availability, production-scale services.

- Deep expertise in distributed systems, consistency, and database management.

- Strong executive communication and customer judgment.

Preferred Experience :

- Expertise in MySQL or similar ecosystems (RDS, Aurora, Vitess).

- Experience building HA architectures and scaling databases (sharding and read scaling) and familiarity with AI-native data patterns (agent state and event-driven architecture). Open-source credibility is a plus.

Key Metrics :

- Reliability : Availability, RTO/RPO, backup/restore success, data durability.

- Operational Health : Incident rate, change failure rate, MTTD/MTTR.

- Performance : Query performance, replication lag, scaling workflow success.

- Business Impact : Adoption, revenue growth, retention, and onboarding success.

- Execution : Velocity, hiring, and retention.