Staff Database Engineer

TensorWave

Staff Database Engineer at TensorWave responsible for database architecture and platform ownership while ensuring performance and operational excellence. Collaborate with cross-functional teams and lead database engineering efforts.

Posted 6/10/2026full-timeLas Vegas • Nevada • 🇺🇸 United StatesLeadWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AnsibleGrafanaLinuxMySQLPostgresPrometheusSQL

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design and own database architecture for critical infrastructure and platform services, including PostgreSQL-backed internal platforms, Slurm accounting and operational databases, NetBox and infrastructure source-of-truth databases, custom internal applications and automation services, observability, inventory, and platform metadata systems, future database-backed control plane services.
Define standard database patterns for high availability, replication, failover, backup and restore, point-in-time recovery, performance baselining, capacity planning, upgrade lifecycle management, access control and operational security.
Establish database design standards for new internal platforms, including schema review, indexing strategy, query design, service ownership boundaries, and production readiness requirements.
Operate and improve production database environments across PostgreSQL, MySQL, Percona, and adjacent systems.
Own the lifecycle of database systems, including provisioning, configuration, version upgrades, replication topology design, performance tuning, backup validation, disaster recovery testing, decommissioning, documentation and runbook creation
Troubleshoot and resolve production database issues involving query latency, lock contention, replication lag, storage I/O bottlenecks, connection exhaustion, poor indexing, schema design problems, database capacity constraints, backup or restore failures.
Drive root cause analysis for database-related incidents and convert findings into durable engineering improvements.
Serve as the senior database engineering owner for infrastructure-adjacent database platforms, including Slurm and NetBox.
For Slurm environments, support and improve database architecture related to SlurmDBD, accounting data, job history, reporting queries, performance and retention strategy, database scaling, backup and recovery, long-term operational reliability
For NetBox and source-of-truth systems, support PostgreSQL performance, database lifecycle planning, backup and restore validation, data integrity, schema-impact review, integration patterns with automation systems
Partner with DevOps, Infrastructure, MLOps, and Platform Engineering teams to ensure database-backed systems are designed to scale as the environment grows.
Build deep database observability beyond basic dashboards.
Develop and maintain visibility into query performance, execution plans, index usage, replication health, locking behavior, buffer/cache efficiency, storage latency, connection pool behavior, OS-level database bottlenecks.
Use tools such as PostgreSQL native statistics, MySQL/Percona tooling, Prometheus, Grafana, PMM, Query logs, slow query logs, eBPF/BCC or equivalent low-level profiling tools, Linux performance tooling.
Create performance baselines and alerting standards for critical database platforms.
Identify recurring database failure patterns and build preventive monitoring, automation, and operational guardrails.
Create database automation patterns that can be integrated with existing infrastructure tooling.
Partner with DevOps and Infrastructure Engineering to automate database provisioning, configuration standards, backup verification, health checks, replication checks, user and permission management, upgrade workflows, monitoring deployment, runbook-driven recovery procedures.
Contribute database-specific modules, roles, or workflows to Ansible, CI/CD pipelines, or internal automation platforms where appropriate.
Define production database readiness standards for new services before they are promoted into critical environments.
Act as the technical lead for major database incidents.
Own or support triage, root cause analysis, cross-team coordination, customer or stakeholder impact analysis, postmortems, corrective action plans, long-term remediation.
Mentor L4 and L5 engineers on database operations, SQL troubleshooting, HA design, incident response, and performance analysis.
Provide senior technical review for database-impacting changes across infrastructure and platform teams.

Requirements

What you’ll need

8+ years of production database engineering, database administration, or database architecture experience
Strong hands-on experience with PostgreSQL in production environments
Strong hands-on experience with MySQL, Percona, or equivalent relational database platforms
Experience designing and operating highly available database systems
Experience with replication, failover, backup, restore, and disaster recovery validation
Deep SQL performance tuning experience, including execution plan analysis, index design, query rewrite, schema optimization, lock contention troubleshooting, storage and I/O analysis
Strong Linux systems knowledge
Experience supporting production incidents and performing root cause analysis
Experience building or improving database monitoring and observability
Ability to work across infrastructure, DevOps, platform, and application engineering teams
Ability to define standards, influence architecture, and mentor other engineers without requiring direct management authority.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Stock Options
100% paid Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance for Employees
Company Health Savings Account Contributions
100% paid Short Term and Long Term Disability Insurance for Employees
Life and Voluntary Supplemental Insurance Options
Other Insurance Options, such as Pet & Legal Insurance
Various Supplementary Health Benefits, such as discounted Virtual Healthcare Appointments and Serious Illness Support
Flexible Spending Account
401(k)
Employee Assistance Program
Flexible PTO
Paid Holidays
Parental Leave
Other In-Office Perks

ATS Keywords

✓ Tailor your resume

Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools

PostgreSQLMySQLPerconaSQL performance tuningdatabase architecturedatabase administrationhigh availabilitydisaster recoveryreplicationbackup and restore

Soft Skills

mentoringroot cause analysiscross-team coordinationinfluencing architectureincident responsecommunicationproblem-solvingcollaborationleadershiptechnical review