Senior Database Administrator – Core Infrastructure

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Europe.

📋 Description

• Scale and optimize high-throughput MariaDB clusters to support global growth and new product initiatives.

• Enhance high-availability, disaster recovery, and backup strategies through effective design and routinely validated procedures.

• Develop automation, streamline process consistency, and facilitate safe, low-friction database workflows.

• Boost observability and alert quality by advocating for relevant metrics and minimizing noise.

• Strengthen database security with robust access controls, patching and upgrading practices, and secure operational methodologies.

• Contribute to containerized environments, infrastructure-as-code practices, and consistent deployment processes.

• Collaborate with service teams to refine performance patterns, ensure operational readiness, and maintain database hygiene.

• Participate in on-call rotations while enhancing predictability through high-quality signals and preventative engineering measures.

• Work alongside senior DBAs and SREs to support essential financial infrastructure services.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 5 years of experience managing MariaDB/MySQL in high-volume production settings, including tuning, replication, and troubleshooting.

• In-depth understanding of high-availability architectures, distributed database behavior, and practical failure scenarios.

• Hands-on proficiency with database proxies or load-balancing layers such as HAProxy, ProxySQL, or MaxScale.

• Practical experience with CI/CD, GitOps, and Infrastructure-as-Code workflows; experience with Terraform is highly desirable.

• Strong foundation in cloud, Linux, and networking principles.

• Familiarity with containers and orchestration platforms, including building container images and managing Kubernetes workloads at scale.

• Strong security awareness regarding access control, upgrade processes, and safe operational practices.

• Expertise in observability, including monitoring, alerting hygiene, and readiness for incident response.

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, including stakeholder engagement, long-term planning, formal documentation, and metrics/KPIs.

• Experience with SRE methodologies such as error budgets, operational reviews, or reliability initiatives.

• Proficient in scripting or programming; Python or Rust preferred.

• Practical experience with GitOps tools such as ArgoCD, GitHub Actions, or GitLab CI.

• Exposure to multi-region or disaster-recovery architectures.

• Interest in cryptocurrency or decentralized systems.

🏝️ Benefits

• Flexible remote work arrangement.

• Requirement to use Kraken products after joining.

• Commitment to equal opportunity employment.

• Consistent application of job-related skills or work-style assessments.

• Consideration of qualified candidates with criminal histories in line with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.