Database Research Scientist

About this role

ClickHouse Labs is an applied research group that works closely with engineering teams to identify challenging problems in database systems and develop novel solutions. Our goal is to advance the state of the art and translate research ideas into real-world system improvements.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As a Research Scientist at ClickHouse Labs, you will work on high-impact problems at the intersection of database systems, distributed systems, AI, and systems software engineering while collaborating with experienced researchers and engineers. The role covers a broad range of problems across database systems research and engineering, including but not limited to query optimization, execution engines, distributed systems, consensus protocols, materialized views, indexing and data structures, benchmarking, workload analysis, and emerging agentic workloads.

In this role, you will work on leading open-source database systems (e.g., ClickHouse, PostgreSQL). You will investigate performance and scalability bottlenecks in production-quality systems, develop new algorithms and system designs, and evaluate them under realistic workloads and hardware configurations. Projects may involve improving query planning and execution, reducing CPU and memory overhead, increasing throughput and concurrency, scaling across distributed deployments, or redesigning system components to leverage modern hardware better. You will work closely with engineers to turn successful ideas into robust implementations that can be deployed and maintained in widely used open-source systems.

Researchers are encouraged to publish their work, contribute to open-source projects, participate in leading research conferences, and pursue ambitious projects with strong engineering and research support.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Conduct applied research aimed at advancing the performance, scalability, reliability, and functionality of open-source database management systems, including ClickHouse and PostgreSQL.