Staff Platform Database Engineer

Chainguard

. Define database platform strategy for deployment, management, scaling, and operation across Chainguard .

Posted 9/22/2026full-timeRemote • United StatesLead💰 $205,000 - $231,000 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates extensive experience in designing, building, and operating production database infrastructure in cloud environments, with a strong focus on high availability, disaster recovery, and capacity planning. Proven ability to lead complex technical initiatives and collaborate across engineering teams to establish best practices and governance models.

Highest-signal resume keywords

PostgreSQL ExpertiseMySQL ExpertiseCloud Database Infrastructure DesignProduction Code Development in GoCross-Functional Leadership

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Database ArchitectureReplicationHigh AvailabilityBackups and RecoveryDatabase MigrationsCapacity PlanningDistributed DatabasesProduction Database OperationsInfrastructure ToolingAI in Database Operations

Soft Skills

Strong CommunicationCross-Functional Leadership

Tools & Technologies

AWSGoogle CloudLinux

Industry Keywords

Database Platform StrategyOperational Risk ManagementGovernance ModelsDisaster RecoveryGlobal Availability

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudLinuxMySQLPostgresGo

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Define database platform strategy for deployment, management, scaling, and operation across Chainguard
Build an inventory of existing database systems and prioritize high-impact, high-risk environments
Develop a roadmap to improve resiliency and reduce operational risk
Design and implement replication, high availability, backups, disaster recovery, migrations, and capacity planning
Develop production-grade tooling, governance models, and automated guardrails
Write production code supporting database deployment, management, and reliability
Design database systems operating across regions and geographies while accounting for availability, latency, EU data residency, and sovereignty requirements
Improve database architecture and operating practices to drive database-related availability incidents toward zero
Lead company-wide database infrastructure initiatives
Author technical and architectural design documents
Establish scalable standards for reliable, secure, performant, and maintainable systems
Partner with Dev Platform, SRE, Customer Engineering, and engineering teams to review architecture and drive consistent best practices

Requirements

What you’ll need

8+ years building and operating production database and platform infrastructure in modern cloud environments
Significant experience in software engineering, infrastructure engineering, or platform engineering with a strong focus on database systems
Staff-level experience leading complex technical initiatives and influencing architecture across multiple engineering teams
Deep experience designing, building, and operating database infrastructure in production
Strong PostgreSQL and MySQL experience
Hands-on production experience with replication, high availability, backups and recovery, database migrations, capacity planning, and distributed databases operating across geographies
Experience operating production database systems with global availability in high scale environments
Experience designing and operating database infrastructure in cloud environments, including AWS and Google Cloud
Strong server-side Linux experience
Proficiency programming in Go
Experience writing production code and building infrastructure tooling
Ability to evaluate existing systems, identify risk, and translate findings into an opinionated architecture and implementation roadmap
Strong communication and cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to guide engineering teams toward shared standards and practices
Experience applying AI or automation to database operations and infrastructure workflows
Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer

Benefits

Comp & perks

Work remotely with team meetup opportunities
Bi-annual destination summits
Monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs
Stock options upon hire and promotion
Participation in secondary offerings
10 years to exercise stock options
100% covered health, vision and dental insurance premiums for employee and dependents
Flexible time off
18 weeks paid parental leave for birthing parents
12 weeks paid parental leave for non-birthing parents
Option to use parental leave all at once or throughout the child's first year