Senior Engineer - Capacity Engineering & Cloud Cost

Robinhood’s mission is to democratize finance for all. As an estimated $124 trillion in assets transfers to younger generations over the next two decades, we are building an elite engineering organization applying frontier technologies to solve the world's largest financial challenges.

The Capacity & Efficiency Engineering team operates at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, data engineering, and FinOps—building software that governs, manages, and reduces Robinhood's AWS cloud spend across compute, databases, and storage. Carrying CEO-level visibility, the team has already driven millions of dollars in annualized savings.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will own capacity planning, fleet rightsizing, and cost efficiency for Robinhood's storage and database fleet—spanning Amazon Aurora (MySQL/PostgreSQL), RDS, ElastiCache, DynamoDB, EBS, and S3. Moving beyond static schedules and manual recommendations, you will build 0-to-1, closed-loop automated software (in Python or Go) that dynamically sizes database reader counts, writer instances, and storage classes based on live market demand, load signals, and forecasted trading events.

Key Responsibilities

• Forecast-Driven Capacity Planning: Architect time-series capacity planning systems that translate traffic history, load testing, and known market events (market open, earnings, IPOs, promotions) into automated scaling plans with automatic expiration holds.
• Dynamic Aurora & Database Scaling: Design and build a capacity planner for Amazon Aurora that dynamically adjusts reader counts and writer instance sizes based on real-time IOPS, CPU, connection pools, and replica lag.
• Fleet-Wide Infrastructure Rightsizing: Implement continuous rightsizing automation for RDS, ElastiCache, DynamoDB, and EBS volumes based on real-time utilization profiles without compromising latency or availability.
• S3 Storage Optimization at Scale: Own S3 cost efficiency across petabyte-scale datasets—optimizing storage classes, Intelligent-Tiering policies, lifecycle/retention rules, and request costs using AWS Storage Lens and inventory metrics.
• Closed-Loop Automation with Guardrails: Build production-grade automation using Python or Go featuring automated guardrails, progressive canary rollouts, and instant rollback capabilities to safely modify live infrastructure.
• Metrics & Cross-Functional Alignment: Track and report core impact metrics (baseline cost savings, forecast error, utilization rates) and share telemetry with compute-scaling pods so storage and compute scale synchronously.

Requirements

Software Engineering & AWS Database Depth

• AWS Storage & Database Mastery: Deep hands-on experience operating AWS database and storage services at scale, particularly Amazon Aurora / RDS (MySQL or PostgreSQL) and Amazon S3 (replication, read scaling, storage classes, and lifecycle governance).
• Capacity Planning & Forecasting: Proven experience modeling time-series demand, running load tests, and converting traffic spikes into concrete instance sizing and storage projections.
• Rightsizing Track Record: Demonstrated success rightsizing production infrastructure from telemetry (CPU, memory, IOPS, throughput, bytes stored) while maintaining strict low-latency SLAs.
• Production Automation (Python or Go): Strong engineering proficiency in Python or Go, with direct experience writing software that safely modifies production cloud infrastructure (built-in guardrails, canary rollouts, and automated rollbacks).
• AWS Cost & Pricing Models: Solid understanding of AWS storage and database pricing models (S3 storage classes vs. request fees, Aurora I/O-Optimized vs. Standard, Reserved Instances/Savings Plans).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience handling high-concurrency, event-driven, or bursty workloads (e.g., financial trading, payment processors, ticketing engines).
• Practical experience with big data processing tools and orchestration engines (Apache Spark, Airflow, or Kubernetes).

Total Rewards & Benefits

• Compensation & Equity: Zone 1 base salary range of $196,000 – $230,000 USD + performance-driven bonus opportunities + Robinhood equity ownership + 401(k) match.
• 100% Paid Employee Healthcare: 100% employer-paid health insurance premiums for employees (90% coverage for eligible dependents), plus life, disability, fertility, and mental health benefits.
• Lifestyle Wallet: Flexible spending account for personal wellness, continuous learning, and development.
• Office Culture & Perks: Modern office setup in Bellevue with daily catered meals, team events, flexible PTO, and paid company holidays.