Database Reliability Engineer

Starling Bank is looking for a Database Reliability Engineer to join its Technology team. As a Database Reliability Engineer, you will be responsible for modernizing and scaling the RDS fleet, evolving observability and monitoring, fortifying business continuity planning, architecting cross-cloud portability, and building Java-driven applications.

Responsibilities:

• Modernize and Scale the RDS Fleet: Ensure the reliability of the existing RDS footprint using Terraform to maintain databases and automate performance tuning strategies.
• Evolve Observability & Monitoring: Build deep, proactive monitoring and alerting for the global database fleet using Java-based data collection pipelines and metrics platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, Dash0, Sentry, and Humio.
• Fortify Business Continuity (BCP): Design and implement rigorous Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery strategies using Java-based automation to ensure data durability and rapid recovery across regions.
• Architect Cross-Cloud Portability: Use CNPG (CloudNativePG) and cloud-native patterns to ensure the database layer remains provider-agnostic, allowing seamless deployment across clouds.
• Build Java-Driven Applications: Enhance production-grade Java microservices to orchestrate database monitoring, automated failover, and replication workflows.

Requirements:

• PostgreSQL Experience: Hands-on experience working with Postgres databases, understanding core database concepts like query execution, indexing, locking, and performance tuning.
• Systems Thinker: Believe infrastructure and database orchestration should be driven programmatically via Terraform and custom Java automation.
• Distributed Systems Enthusiast: Excited by the challenge of multi-everything,multi-tenant and multi-region data platforms,while ensuring data integrity, clean relational modeling, and mobility.
• A Security & Observability Mindset: Focus on building deep observability and automated security guardrails directly into Java services.

Benefits:

• 25 days holiday (plus take your public holiday allowance)
• An extra day's holiday for your birthday
• Annual leave increases with length of service
• 16 hours paid volunteering time a year
• Salary sacrifice, company-enhanced pension scheme
• Life insurance at 4x your salary & group income protection
• Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth
• Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform, and weekly free and boosted perks