Senior Data Platform Engineer

Sola Payments

3d•$165,000 - $200,000•Remote

About The Position

The Senior Data Platform Engineer serves as Sola’s primary database administrator and data platform engineer within the DevSecOps team. The role owns production databases supporting analytics, transactional, and caching workloads—including Amazon Redshift, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and PostgreSQL—as well as the Cube.js semantic layer, ingestion pipelines, and Terraform-managed infrastructure. This is a hands-on role with substantial autonomy. The engineer designs data architecture, resolves production performance issues, and maintains the pipelines and infrastructure as code that support the platform. In a PCI DSS- and SOC 2-regulated payments environment, the role partners closely with Engineering, DevOps, and Security to keep the data platform performant, reliable, secure, and scalable. The position is accountable for warehouse and analytics performance, relational database administration, query optimization, database architecture, ingestion pipelines, NoSQL and caching platforms, and operational readiness. Success is measured by database availability, query performance, data freshness, backup and disaster recovery readiness, incident reduction, cost efficiency, timely maintenance and upgrades, audit readiness, and the quality of operational documentation and monitoring. The engineer manages day-to-day database operations independently, collaborates on architecture and incident response, and participates in an on-call rotation, including after-hours coverage and a weekend and holiday backup rotation.

Requirements

At least 7 years of hands-on database administration experience across relational and NoSQL technologies.
At least 2 years of production Amazon Redshift experience, including workload management, distribution and sort key design, vacuum and analyze operations, and diagnosing complex performance issues.
Strong MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server administration skills, including backup and restore, replication and CDC, upgrades, and troubleshooting.
Working knowledge of PostgreSQL and the ability to lead schema design and administration for new services.
Experience in PCI DSS- or SOC 2-regulated environments.
Demonstrated success diagnosing and resolving query performance issues in high-throughput environments.
Experience designing database architecture for new applications as well as maintaining existing systems.
Working knowledge of DynamoDB data modeling and performance tuning.
Experience administering ElastiCache (Redis or Memcached) or equivalent caching infrastructure.
Solid AWS proficiency across the console and CLI, including IAM, CloudWatch, VPC, RDS, and S3.
Scripting proficiency in Python, Bash, or similar, and sufficient familiarity with application code to collaborate effectively with engineers.
Experience using AI-assisted tools to accelerate query development, troubleshooting, documentation, and scripting.
Ability to work independently, prioritize competing demands, and deliver projects with minimal oversight.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including documenting architecture decisions and operational procedures.
Ability to take part in after-hours incident response coverage, including a weekend and holiday backup rotation.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Cube.js or a comparable semantic layer.
Infrastructure as code experience, preferably Terraform; CloudFormation or CDK experience is also relevant, including extending existing modules.
Experience with data pipeline and ETL tooling such as AWS DMS, Glue, or Step Functions.
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and database change management tools such as Flyway or Liquibase.
Relevant AWS certifications, such as AWS Certified Database Specialty or Solutions Architect.

Responsibilities

Own the performance, availability, and cost of the Amazon Redshift data warehouse, including cluster sizing, workload management, distribution and sort key design, and routine vacuum and analyze maintenance.
Administer and tune Cube.js as the semantic and analytics layer built on Redshift.
Administer production MySQL/Aurora MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server databases, including backup and recovery, patching, version upgrades, CDC and replication, and high availability and failover configuration.
Lead PostgreSQL schema design, administration, and standards for newer services.
Profile and tune queries, indexes, and execution plans across relational and NoSQL systems.
Implement monitoring and alerting to identify performance regressions before they become incidents.
Partner with engineering teams early in project lifecycles to design schemas, select appropriate data stores, and establish standards for scalability, normalization, and data integrity.
Own warehouse ingestion pipelines, including AWS DMS and CDC replication, Glue jobs, Step Functions orchestration, and EventBridge scheduled loads; resolve throughput, memory, and data freshness issues end to end.
Design DynamoDB table structures, partition and sort key strategies, secondary indexes, and capacity modes to balance performance and cost at scale.
Administer and tune ElastiCache (Redis and Memcached), including cluster topology, eviction policies, and failover behavior.
Develop and maintain runbooks, backup and disaster recovery procedures, and monitoring for owned database platforms.
Participate in the on-call rotation and after-hours incident response coverage as required.
Manage day-to-day database operations independently while collaborating with Engineering and Security on architecture reviews, capacity planning, and incident response.
Document architecture decisions and operational procedures and support audit readiness for PCI DSS and SOC 2 requirements.