All fields marked * are required
About the Role
A Senior Database Engineer to own indexing strategy, query performance, and database architecture decisions across our PostgreSQL estate. You'll work on systems where scale is a given — large tables, high write volume, and workloads where a wrong indexing decision costs real money in latency and infrastructure spend. This is a hands-on, high-ownership role: you'll be trusted to make the trade-offs, not just execute someone else's spec.
What You'll Do
Design and tune indexing strategies (B-Tree, GIN, GiST, Hash, BRIN, and partial/expression indexes) for large-scale production workloads
Diagnose and resolve query performance issues using EXPLAIN ANALYZE, planner statistics, and PostgreSQL internals knowledge
Evaluate trade-offs between read performance, write amplification, storage cost, and maintenance overhead when proposing schema or index changes
Partner with backend engineering teams to review schema designs, query patterns, and migrations before they hit production
Own database architecture decisions for new and evolving services — index strategy, partitioning, and data modelling at scale
Set and enforce best practices for index maintenance, auto vacuum tuning, and bloat management
Mentor other engineers on query optimization and PostgreSQL fundamentals
What We're Looking For
Required:
Deep, hands-on experience with PostgreSQL internals — MVCC, the query planner, and how indexes are actually used (not just created)
Proven ability to design and reason about B-Tree, GIN, and GiST indexing strategies for real production workloads
Experience diagnosing and resolving performance issues on large (100M+ row) tables
Comfort with the trade-offs between different index types and knowing when not to add an index
Strong communication skills — you can explain a technical trade-off to both an engineer and a stakeholder
Preferred:
Experience with BRIN indexes on time-series or append-only data
Experience with jsonb/full-text search indexing at scale
Familiarity with exclusion constraints, range types, and PostGIS/spatial workloads
Experience tuning auto vacuum, WAL, and replication for high-write systems
Required