Staff Database Engineer
About TensorWave
Our mission is simple: deliver seamless, secure, reliable, and resilient AI compute at scale. We've built a versatile cloud platform that eliminates infrastructure barriers, empowering builders to focus on innovation instead of fighting their stack. Because breakthrough AI should move at the speed of ideas, not infrastructure.
About the Role
We’re looking for a Staff Database Engineer to join our team during an exciting phase of growth. In this role, you’ll be responsible for database architecture, database reliability, infrastructure-adjacent database platforms, performance engineering, observability, automation, operational maturity, incident response, and engineering leadership, working closely with cross-functional partners to support business objectives while upholding our standards for excellence, collaboration, and impact.
What You’ll Do
Database Architecture & Platform Ownership
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.
PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Database Reliability
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.
Slurm, NetBox, and Infrastructure Data Systems
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.
Performance Engineering & Observability
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.
Automation, Standards, and Operational Maturity
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.
Incident Response & Engineering Leadership
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.
Who You Are
Required Qualifications
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
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with SlurmDBD, Slurm accounting databases, or HPC/AI infrastructure database workloads
Experience with NetBox or other infrastructure source-of-truth platforms
Experience with Percona XtraDB Cluster, ProxySQL, or advanced MySQL/Percona architectures
Experience with PostgreSQL HA tooling and replication architectures
Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, PMM, Splunk, or similar observability platforms
Experience with eBPF/BCC, perf, strace, or other low-level Linux diagnostic tooling
Experience supporting databases for SaaS, cloud, HPC, AI infrastructure, or large multi-tenant platforms
Experience with MongoDB, Oracle, SQL Server, or other secondary database platforms
Experience with database automation using Ansible, Terraform, CI/CD systems, or internal tooling
Experience with zero-downtime migrations, major version upgrades, and production database consolidation
What We Offer
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
Equal Employment Opportunity
TensorWave is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected status under applicable law.
Reasonable Accommodations
TensorWave provides reasonable accommodations in accordance with applicable laws. If you require accommodation during the hiring process, please contact [email protected].
Employment Eligibility
All offers of employment are contingent upon verification of identity and authorization to work in United States, as required by law.
Background Checks
Where permitted by law, employment may be contingent upon the successful completion of a job-related background check.
Data Privacy Notice
By submitting an application, you acknowledge that TensorWave may collect, use, and retain your personal information for recruiting and employment-related purposes in accordance with applicable data privacy laws.