Senior Engineer – Database Infrastructure

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United Kingdom, +1 more country.

📋 Description

• Manage PostgreSQL and MySQL databases on Amazon RDS across production, staging, and development environments.

• Oversee replication, failover, backup and recovery processes, upgrades, autovacuum, wraparound, purge, and monitor replica lag.

• Execute ClickHouse for both operational and analytical tasks, handling table engines, sort keys, partitioning, merges, replication, and ingestion paths.

• Assist with CockroachDB operations and gradually take on increased responsibilities as knowledge expands.

• Analyze slow queries and lock waits related to bets, settlements, and payouts, linking them to execution plans, statistics, schemas, or application code.

• Evaluate schema-change risks for large tables.

• Collaborate with application teams to review schemas and queries prior to deployment.

• Develop observability solutions using Prometheus, Grafana, Mimir, and Loki.

• Engage in the data-layer on-call rotation.

• Lead incident analyses and conduct blameless postmortems.

• Create tooling using Python and Go.

• Automate provisioning and recovery processes with Terraform.

• Leverage AI tools to investigate incidents and develop robust tooling, ensuring outputs align with production facts.

• Establish and audit access controls and encryption measures for a regulated gaming platform.

• Set benchmarks across database engines and take part in architecture reviews.

• Review source code when troubleshooting requires code-level analysis.

⛳️ Requirements

• Minimum of 5 years of experience managing production relational databases as a DBA, Database Reliability Engineer, or Data Platform Engineer.

• Extensive production experience with PostgreSQL and MySQL, or profound expertise in one with significant working knowledge of the other.

• Comprehensive understanding of PostgreSQL heap and row versions, InnoDB clustered index and undo log, write-ahead logging, cost-based planning, replication, failover strategies, and the distinctions of ClickHouse from traditional relational engines.

• Knowledge of distributed systems, including consensus mechanisms, distributed transactions, and consistency models.

• Proficiency in Python or Go, along with sufficient Java skills to debug line-of-business applications.

• Familiarity with Linux, infrastructure-as-code, monitoring tools like Grafana, AWS, and a willingness to participate in an on-call rotation.

• Strong technical writing and verbal communication skills.

• Capacity to comprehend systems through source code, design documents, and practical experimentation.

• Experience in developing Python or Go tools for database operations, ensuring migration safety, or responding to incidents.

• Proven experience in investigating production incidents from start to finish, including execution plans and source code analysis.

• Background in migrating workloads between database engines or across significant versions.

• Experience in handling tasks outside of database management and influencing other teams' development or deployment processes.

• Experience running ClickHouse, CockroachDB, or similar distributed databases in a production environment.

• Familiarity with Kafka, Materialize, or Snowflake.

• Experience utilizing AI coding agents in real-world scenarios with a focus on evidence-based review practices.

• Commitment to making this role the primary professional focus rather than a side engagement.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package.

• Flexible vacation policy.

• Hybrid/remote work options available.

• Startup culture supported by a stable, global brand.

• Commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace.

• Equal opportunity employer.