Senior PostgreSQL Database Administrator / Database Engineer

Responsibilities

• Own performance for high-volume OLTP PostgreSQL workloads, including query-plan analysis, index strategy, statistics and autovacuum tuning, connection pooling, partitioning, and schema design review.
• Design, deploy, and operate highly available PostgreSQL clusters with Patroni, including replication topology, failover, switchover procedures, and regular testing.
• Own backup and recovery tooling, retention, point-in-time recovery (PITR), restore verification, and documented RTO/RPO objectives.
• Operate PostgreSQL across self-managed on-premises/VM/bare-metal environments and Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL.
• Plan and execute major-version upgrades and large migrations with minimal downtime.
• Review Ruby on Rails/ActiveRecord and Java/JDBC application code and database migrations for query, indexing, DDL, and locking issues.
• Build and maintain database observability, including metrics, slow-query capture, lock and wait-event analysis, and capacity forecasting.
• Automate routine database operations and improve operational runbooks.
• Participate in an on-call rotation, lead incident response, write postmortems, and drive corrective actions.
• Maintain runbooks, architecture decision records, upgrade playbooks, and developer guidance.
• Assist with on-premises server hardware sizing and disaster-recovery planning and exercises.

Requirements

• Deep production PostgreSQL expertise, including query-planner analysis and EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS).
• Experience with B-tree, GIN, GiST, BRIN, partial, expression, and covering indexes, including write-amplification tradeoffs.
• Understanding of physical and logical replication, replication slots, lag diagnosis, and replication failure modes.
• Production experience with Patroni-managed clusters, including handling a real failover.
• Ownership of backup and restore programs using tools such as pgBackRest or Barman, including production restoration.
• Experience operating PostgreSQL at scale in self-managed and Amazon RDS environments.
• Strong Linux fundamentals covering filesystems, I/O, memory, hugepages, systemd, networking, and performance tooling.
• Software development experience with pull requests, peer review, runbooks, and design documentation.
• Working proficiency in Ruby and Java, with sufficient Python proficiency to read, review, and modify code.
• Excellent written communication and documentation skills.

Nice-to-Haves

• Operating PgBouncer at scale.
• Infrastructure as code and configuration management with Terraform, Ansible, SaltStack, or Puppet.
• Kubernetes-hosted PostgreSQL operators.
• Active-active multi-site architectures.
• Logical-replication-based zero-downtime migrations.
• Contributions to PostgreSQL or ecosystem tooling.
• Familiarity with internal tooling such as gascan.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary: $150,000-$180,000 annually.
• Discretionary performance bonus: 8-12% of base salary.
• Stock purchase options.
• Medical, vision, and dental benefits.
• 401(k) plan.
• Paid vacation and sick leave.
• Gym membership reimbursement and wellness programs.
• Commuter benefits and pet insurance.
• Charitable donation matching and paid volunteer days.
• Office meals, snacks, beverages, gym access, and Metra shuttle.