An open-source Pinecone alternative https://github.com/qdrant/qdrant With a cloud offering along https://cloud.qdrant.io with 1GB cluster for free to try out. Disclaimer: I'm part of the team.
how much do one need to know of databases to work at qdrant? Sounds like a nice place to work, specially if remote
Well, to work on the core of the Qdrant engine https://github.com/qdrant/qdrant you should have some db knowledge but even more important are Rust skills. However, we have also other products, like the cloud platform https://cloud.qdrant.io there we are looking for different skills.