Senior Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE)

Job Overview

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE) with expertise in PostgreSQL at scale and experience with MySQL. As a DBRE, you will design, operationalize, and optimise the data persistence layer that powers our large-scale, mission-critical systems.

Responsibilities

Architecture, Reliability & Performance

• Design, implement, and operate highly available PostgreSQL clusters, including physical replication, logical replication, sharding/partitioning, and failover automation.
• Optimise query performance, indexing strategies, schema design, and storage engines.
• Perform capacity planning, growth forecasting, and workload modelling.
• Develop and implement high-availability strategies, including automatic failover, multi-AZ/multi-region setups, and disaster recovery.

Automation & Tooling

• Develop automation for tasks such as provisioning, configuration, backups, failovers, vacuum tuning, and schema management using tools like Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes Operators, or custom tooling.
• Build monitoring, alerting, and self-healing systems for PostgreSQL and MySQL.

Operations & Incident Response

• Lead response during database incidents, including performance regressions, replication lag, deadlocks, bloat issues, and storage failures.
• Conduct root-cause analysis and implement permanent fixes.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with software engineers to review SQL, optimise schemas, and ensure efficient use of PostgreSQL features.
• Provide guidance on database-related design patterns, migrations, version upgrades, and best practices.

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of hands-on PostgreSQL experience in high-volume, distributed, or large-scale production environments.
• Strong knowledge of PostgreSQL internals, including WAL, MVCC, bloat/vacuum tuning, query planner, indexing, and logical replication.
• Production experience with MySQL, including InnoDB internals, replication, and performance tuning.
• Advanced SQL skills and strong understanding of schema design and query optimisation.
• Experience with Linux systems, networking fundamentals, and systems troubleshooting.
• Experience building automation with Go or Python.
• Production experience with monitoring tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, PMM, and pg_stat_statements.
• Hands-on experience with cloud environments, such as AWS or GCP.

Preferred/Bonus Qualifications

• Experience with PgBouncer, HAProxy, or other connection-pooling/load-balancing layers.
• Exposure to event streaming (Kafka, Debezium) and change data capture.
• Experience supporting 24/7 production environments with on-call rotation.
• Contributions to open-source PostgreSQL ecosystem.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary: $160,000 - $220,000 USD per year (for San Francisco Bay Area)
• Equity (where applicable)
• Bonus
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k)
• Flexible spending account
• Paid leave (including PTO and parental leave)