Staff Database Engineer and AI Orchestrator

Coupang•Mountain View, CA

1d•$164,000 - $282,000

About The Position

We are looking for a skilled and experienced Database Engineer with AI experience to join the Customer Success team at Coupang. The Customer Success team obsesses over the success of development and application teams by delivering high-quality storage infrastructure. In this role, you will be responsible for developing tools and automation (scripts, AI) for reliable operations of Aurora MySQL, Aurora PostgreSQL, DocumentDB, DynamoDB, Cassandra, and TiDB databases in a high-traffic, mission-critical e-commerce environment. You will work closely with development teams and application teams to ensure database reliability, performance, and availability while driving operational excellence through automation and best practices. At Coupang, we Aim High and Find a Way to solve impossible problems. You will be responsible for building a system that doesn't just meet industry standards but sets them, ensuring 5-6 nines availability while leveraging AI to automate complex system behaviors and self-healing capabilities.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in computer science, Electrical Engineering, Math, or a closely related field
6 years of experience in backend software development
Proficiency in Java and the Spring Framework
Experience working in cloud environments, particularly AWS
Demonstrated experience in building and maintaining highly available, distributed systems

Nice To Haves

10+ years of hands-on experience as a Database Engineer.
2+ years of creating AI Automation for your own or company workflows, storage, or code.
5+ years of experience managing Amazon Aurora MySQL and/or Aurora PostgreSQL in production environments.
Strong expertise in MySQL 8.0+ including replication, InnoDB internals, query optimization, and troubleshooting.
Working knowledge of PostgreSQL including extensions, vacuuming, and major version upgrade procedures.
Proficiency with AWS database services (Aurora, RDS) and related services (CloudWatch, IAM, VPC, Parameter Groups).
Proficiency in Python or similar scripting languages for automation.
Experience with database operations in large-scale, high-traffic environments (10,000+ TPS)

Responsibilities

Generate AI Skills and Context prompts to automate storage engine and code and configuration generation across storage technologies.
Manage and operate large-scale Amazon Aurora MySQL and Aurora PostgreSQL clusters in production environments.
Perform database maintenance tasks including version upgrades (minor/major), patching, and parameter tuning.
Execute Blue/Green Deployment (BGD) based upgrades and migrations with minimal downtime.
Monitor and analyze database performance using AWS CloudWatch, Performance Insights, and internal monitoring tools.
Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks through query optimization, index tuning, and configuration adjustments.
Conduct capacity planning and provide recommendations for scaling strategies.
Ensure high availability and reliability of database services through proactive monitoring and incident response.
Participate in on-call rotations and respond to database-related incidents in a timely manner.
Design and implement failover strategies and validate recovery procedures.
Develop and maintain automation scripts and tools (Python) for database operations, reducing manual intervention.
Create and maintain Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all database operations.
Contribute to internal tooling and operational frameworks.
Partner with application development teams to provide database architecture guidance and support.
Collaborate with infrastructure and security teams on database-related projects (e.g., SPIRE-based DB authentication).
Participate in change management processes and conduct thorough reviews of database changes.