Senior Database Engineer

Collective Health•San Francisco, CA

3d•$134,500 - $210,000•Hybrid

About The Position

At Collective Health, we're transforming how employers and their people engage with their health benefits by seamlessly integrating cutting-edge technology,passionate service, and world-class user experience design. Database Engineering at Collective Health is a disciplinebining software, data and systems engineering skills. We modern data platform infrastructure, systems, software, architecture, and development practices to give our customers a more reliable, scalable and secure healthcare data management experience. We're seeking a highly experienced and technically versatile Senior Database Engineer to join our Cloud Engineeringanization. Database Engineers (DE) are responsible for keeping database systems that support all user-facing services running smoothly. Database Engineers are a blend of database engineering, administration and software developers that sound engineering principles, operational discipline and mature software development and automation, specializing in databases (PostgreSQL in particular). In that capacity, DEs are peers to SREs and bring database expertise to the SRE and Infrastructure teams as well as our engineering teams. Partnering with engineering teams, Database Engineers build on public cloud services to deliver aprehensive platform that enables our developers to rapidly deliver high-quality, impactful, scalable, and reliable services. As a broader group of Site Reliability Engineers including those focused on infrastructure and platform, we collaborate and identify themes and solutions to benefit Collective Health at large, engage in regular knowledge sharing activities and retrospectives, and relentlessly support one another in order to gain knowledge, remove barriers, and grow as individuals and a team. This critical role demands a blend of hands-on technical mastery, strategic architecture and infrastructure design, and database operational principles. The ideal candidate is an expert in managing, optimizing, and scaling various database technologies, primarily PostgreSQL. Crucially, this person will be instrumental in designing, implementing, and maintaining high-availability database infrastructure spanning Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including modern systems like AWS RDS/Aurora and GCP AlloyDB/Cloud SQL. Direct experience within the Health Care Insurance industry is desired.

Requirements

Experience: 8+ years of experience as a Database Administrator, with at least 4 years of experience in a multi-cloud environment and significant exposure to database architecture/design.
Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
Core DB Expertise: Expert-level proficiency in administering, tuning, and maintaining PostgreSQL on AWS and GCP.
Cloud Relational and Non-Relational DBs: Significant experience with cloud-native relational database services in AWS (RDS, Aurora) and GCP (Cloud SQL, AlloyDB).
Advanced Data Systems: Proven experience with MultiSite database replication technologies.
DevOps/IaC: Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools, particularly Terraform, for managing cloud database resources.
Automation: Excellent scripting skills in Python will be highly desired.
Security & Compliance: Expertise in database security best practices and ensuring HIPAApliance at the data layer.
Planning: Experience in capacity planning, cost analysis, and justification for the architecture and design proposals.
Industry Experience: Direct and significant experience working in the Health Care Insurance industry or another highly regulated environment is highly desired.
Soft Skills: Exceptionalmunication, analytical, and troubleshooting skills, with proven ability to lead and mentor.

Nice To Haves

Industry Experience: Prior experience in the healthcare IT industry or another highly regulated environment will stand out.
Exposure to GCP BiqQuery will be nice to have.
Certifications are highly desirable that can demonstrate relevant expertise: AWS Certified Data Engineer - Associate Google Cloud Professional Cloud Database Engineer PostgreSQL Professional Certification

Responsibilities

Strategic Planning: Drive the design, deployment, and optimization of highly available, scalable, and secure database solutions across AWS and GCP.
Data Governance: Ensure all database architectures and operational procedures ad strictly to regulatory frameworks relevant to the health care insurance industry (e.g., HIPAA, SOC 2, HITRUST).
Replication & HA: Design and implement advanced MultiSite and cross-region database replication technologies to ensure global read/write availability and meet stringent Disaster Recovery (DR) objectives.
Migration: Leadplex database migration strategies, including rearchitecting monolithic database systems into manageable databases supporting microservices.
Automation: Develop robust automation using tools like Terraform, Ansible, and Python/Shell scripting for infrastructure provisioning, monitoring, and maintenance.
Performance Tuning: Lead advanced performance tuning and optimization efforts forplex SQL queries, database schemas, and cloud instance configurations.
Incident Response: Serve as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for high-severity database incidents, diagnosing root causes, and implementing SRE-driven long-term solutions.
Disaster Recovery (DR): Design, implement, and regularly testprehensive HA/DR strategies across multi-cloud foots.