Database Engineer

Chess.com

Database Engineer at Chess.com designing and architecting database systems for real-time gaming and social graph traversal. 100% remote work from anywhere.

Posted 7/23/2026full-timeRemote • 🌎 Anywhere in the WorldMid-LevelSeniorWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in database engineering with a focus on MySQL optimization, data pipeline development, and infrastructure automation. Capable of designing high-availability database systems and implementing observability solutions to enhance performance and efficiency.

Highest-signal resume keywords

MySQL (Percona) ProficiencyPython and/or Go ProgrammingData Pipeline DevelopmentInfrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi)Monitoring and Observability (Datadog, Prometheus, PMM)

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Database EngineeringData ModelingETL ProcessesQuery OptimizationLinux Systems KnowledgeDistributed Systems ConceptsCaching Architectures (Redis)Real-Time Data ProcessingAutomation ToolsPerformance Optimization

Tools & Technologies

TerraformAnsiblePulumiDatadogPrometheusPMM

Industry Keywords

High-Availability Database SystemsReal-Time GamingSocial Graph TraversalDatabase DeploymentIncident Management

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AnsibleDistributed SystemsETLGoLinuxMySQLPrometheusPythonRedisTerraform

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design and architect database systems optimized for Chess.com's specific workloads including real-time gaming, puzzle systems, and social graph traversal
Build internal tooling and automation to improve database deployment, migration, and operational efficiency, simplifying work streams for the broader engineering organization
Develop data pipelines and ETL processes for analytics, machine learning features, and cross-system data synchronization
Engineer multi-regional database architectures capable of handling massive volumes of chess games, user data, and social network interactions with minimal latency
Solve complex data modeling challenges including chess game storage optimization, puzzle attempt tracking, and large-scale social graph representation
Drive database platform evolution evaluating and implementing new technologies, storage engines, and architectural patterns with a bias toward continuous improvement
Build observability and performance tooling providing deep visibility into database behavior, query patterns, and capacity trends
Collaborate with product engineering teams to design optimal schemas, access patterns, and data layer integrations, ensuring the right people have the information they need
Implement infrastructure-as-code practices for database provisioning, configuration, and lifecycle management with high first-time-right quality
Participate in on-call rotation to ensure 24/7 database availability and contribute to incident post-mortems.

Requirements

What you’ll need

5+ years of professional database engineering experience with large-scale, high-availability database systems in production environments
Expert-level proficiency with MySQL (Percona) including internals, storage engine behavior, replication topologies, and performance optimization
Strong software engineering skills with proficiency in Python and/or Go for tooling, automation, and data pipeline development
Experience designing and building data pipelines using streaming or batch processing frameworks
Strong experience with Redis for caching architectures, pub/sub systems, and high-performance data structures
Advanced Linux systems knowledge with understanding of kernel behavior, I/O patterns, and hardware optimization for database workloads
Experience with distributed systems concepts including CAP theorem trade-offs, consensus protocols, and partition tolerance
Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi) for database infrastructure automation
Experience with monitoring and observability platforms (Datadog, Prometheus, PMM) for building database observability solutions
Strong understanding of query optimization including execution plans, index design, and workload analysis.

Benefits

Comp & perks

100% remote
Work from anywhere!