Principal Software Engineer – Capella Control Plane

Location: San Jose, California (Hybrid - in office at least 3 days/week)

Couchbase Capella is a fully managed Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) platform that powers mission-critical applications with a modern, distributed NoSQL database. The Control Plane team builds and operates the foundational systems that deliver reliability, scalability, and seamless experiences across cloud environments.

We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to serve as the cross-team technical authority for Capella's Control Plane — the platform that orchestrates SaaS interactions with major cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure). This role is central to the evolution of Capella's multi-cloud control plane and will shape the systems that provision, secure, and operate the platform at scale. You will set a durable technical direction with organization level influence, be accountable for production outcomes, and drive solutions to ambiguous, high-stakes problems through hands-on development and deep distributed systems expertise.

Key Responsibilities

• Architecture & Technical Direction: Define and evolve the control plane architecture for scalability, reliability, performance, and security.
• Hands-on Development: Develop and deliver production-quality Golang code for critical Capella platform services. Establish and enforce coding standards, CI/CD practices, and design patterns.
• Multi-Cloud Infrastructure: Architect and optimize multi-cloud deployments, networking models, VPC/VNet peering, load balancing, and secure connectivity across AWS, GCP, and Azure. Build and scale multi-tenant control plane services that orchestrate cluster lifecycle across providers.
• Reliability & Observability: Define and implement monitoring, logging, tracing, and alerting standards for operational excellence. Own accountability for production outcomes including root cause analysis and long-term remediation of critical issues.
• Platform Capabilities: Lead design and delivery of core platform capabilities such as provisioning, lifecycle management, and security controls. Tackle ambiguous distributed systems challenges involving scaling, networking, and performance.
• Cross-Team Leadership: Exercise cross-team technical authority, partnering with product, SRE, Quality Engineering, operations, and global engineering teams across geographies to align technical direction with business goals. Maintain working knowledge of web UI architecture and partner effectively with frontend engineers on end-to-end control plane workflows.
• Mentorship & Culture: Guide engineers across levels, perform code reviews, and set a high bar for engineering culture.
• Innovation: Research and evaluate cloud-native technologies, frameworks, and architectures for Capella's evolution.

Must-Have Skills & Experience

• Expertise in Golang with proven experience building distributed, cloud-native systems.
• Strong knowledge of system design, high availability, fault tolerance, and performance tuning.
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure), including networking (VPCs, routing, load balancing, firewalls, private connectivity) and Kubernetes/container orchestration.
• Experience designing and building control plane and platform components for SaaS platforms at scale.
• Proven experience leading cross-team architecture and platform decisions in complex, ambiguous cloud and distributed systems environments.
• Working knowledge of web UI architecture and ability to partner effectively with frontend engineers on end-to-end control plane workflows.
• Experience mentoring engineers and driving org-level influence on engineering culture and standards.

Nice-to-Have Skills & Experience

• Experience with DBaaS platforms or large-scale database infrastructure.
• Exposure to AI/ML integrations within SaaS platforms (e.g., model serving, vector databases, AI-assisted workflows).

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 5+ years in cloud/distributed systems.
• Prior principal or staff engineer-level experience leading architecture and platform initiatives in cloud infrastructure or large-scale SaaS environments.

Strategic Sales Rep 

Location: Varies, US remote
Travel: Up to 40–50%

Role Overview

Couchbase is seeking a Strategic Account Executive to own and grow a portfolio of our largest, most complex enterprise customers. This role is designed for a senior individual contributor who thrives in long, consultative sales cycles, builds deep executive relationships, and consistently drives expansion within strategic accounts. You will act as a trusted advisor to customers while partnering closely with internal teams to deliver business-critical solutions across cloud and on-prem environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and execute a Strategic Account Plan for a defined set of named enterprise accounts, aligned to Couchbase’s go-to-market strategy and growth objectives.
  
  
• Drive new business, expansion, and retention within Fortune 1000 and other strategic customer relationships.
  
  
• Manage complex, multi-threaded sales cycles from pipeline generation through negotiation and close, leveraging MEDDIC or equivalent sales methodologies.
  
  
• Build and maintain strong C-level and senior stakeholder relationships, positioning Couchbase as a long-term strategic partner.
  
  
• Collaborate closely with Sales Engineering, Customer Success, Product, Marketing, SDRs, and Partner teams to deliver differentiated solutions and exceptional customer outcomes.
  
  
• Develop and execute pipeline creation and expansion strategies, leveraging customer ecosystems, events, cloud partnerships, digital channels, and developer communities.
  
  
• Accurately manage and forecast pipeline, ensuring strong data integrity across Salesforce and sales tooling platforms.
  
  
• Partner with leadership and act as a quarterback for internal resources, ensuring alignment across teams and successful execution against account objectives.
  
  
• Stay current on the Couchbase platform and competitive landscape, articulating clear business value across both cloud (SaaS) and on-premise deployments.
  
  
• Represent Couchbase with professionalism and credibility in high-stakes customer engagements, negotiations, and executive briefings.
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

• 6–10+ years of enterprise or strategic software sales experience as an individual contributor.
  
  
• Proven track record of exceeding quota in complex, high-value enterprise sales environments.
  
  
• Experience selling into Fortune 500 / Global 2000 accounts, navigating procurement, security, and multi-stakeholder decision processes.
  
  
• Background selling cloud, SaaS, database, or infrastructure technologies, ideally business-critical platforms.
  
  
• Strong command of enterprise sales methodologies (MEDDIC, Challenger, or similar) and disciplined opportunity management.
  
  
• Comfortable engaging with executive buyers and technical stakeholders, translating technical capabilities into clear business outcomes.
  
  
• Experience co-selling with partners, cloud providers, and system integrators is highly valued.
  
  
• Highly organized, self-directed, and accountable, with strong time management and forecasting discipline.
  
  
• Thrives in a fast-paced, growth-stage environment, with a builder mindset and passion for customer success.
  
  
• Willingness to travel up to 40–50%.