Sr Database Reliability Engineer

Job Posted: 4/17/24

Location: Americas

Hi there!

We're seeking a Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE) to join our team in the Americas! As we continue to scale our product and grow our team, we're looking for experienced Database-focused Engineers to be stewards of Zapier's databases. We need Engineers who can help architect our overall data infrastructure landscape but aren't afraid to get into the weeds to solve gnarly operational problems.

With deep expertise in relational databases and PostgreSQL, you will support our continuous efforts with database performance and reliability. Simultaneously, as Zapier is expanding the diversity of our product offerings and providing database-like tools to our customers (Tables, Transfer), you will help us to address operational challenges and provide direct support to developing new products.

You'll help drive our best practices around automation, performance, reliability, and disaster recovery.

To help share a bit more about life at Zapier, here are a few resources in addition to the job description that can give you an inside look at what life is like at Zapier:

• Our Commitment to Applicants

• Culture and Values at Zapier

• Zapier Guide to Remote Work

• Zapier Code of Conduct

• Diversity and Inclusivity at Zapier

Zapier is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a diverse workforce.

About You

You're an experienced database technologist with a background in PostgreSQL. You have at least 7 years of experience in systems administration, systems engineering, or software development, with at least 4 years of experience building and maintaining data services on PostgreSQL. You’re familiar with PostgreSQL ecosystem of extensions and third-party tools, and have leveraged them to build production systems.

You know the cloud. You've designed and maintained highly available, cloud-based database systems in AWS or another cloud platform. We use tools like Postgres, MySQL, and Redis.

You can code. You're comfortable automating solutions and building tools that eliminate repetitive tasks. You're not afraid to delve into application code to fix a bug or to launch a backend service to address a gap in our data management strategy.

You can solve complex systems challenges. You take ownership of difficult problems, understand how to improve performance, and help uncover opportunities for improvement. You've worked on issues where “just throw more hardware at it” isn't enough for the system to scale.

You're a great communicator. Not only do you know how to share your knowledge with the team and document things well so they can be consumed asynchronous (we do this a lot as a remote company), but you know how to communicate effectively with software and support teams.

You value our values. At Zapier, our values are at the heart of how we work together and how we think about our customers. In our remote setting, they help develop trust and ensure we work together and collaborate to democratize automation. You see how these values can empower meaningful work, you thrive in a collaborative setting, you are eager to continue growing, and you're excited to be part of the team

Things You’ll Do

• Identifying and implementing strategies to improve performance and resilience. Our application is continually growing and we need your help to keep scaling.

• Working with development teams to make architectural decisions about new services and new technologies. Many of our new services use Postgres and teams need your help understanding how to best use it.

• Steamlining how developers get from zero to a scalable, performant, and secure database, so that they can focus on building great services.

• Monitoring use of our data layer and advising teams on how to use storage in a healthy and scalable way.

• Acting as a point of escalation for data-layer problems during production incidents.

• And more!

Things We've Done Recently

• Added new monitoring tooling across our fleet of RDS databases for improved observability;

• Rebuilt our connection pooling to our main production database to make it faster and easier to deploy config changes;

• Removed low-value code and tables from our system, cutting database traffic by 15%;

• Migrated portions of a shared EAV datastore into our relational databases, eliminating a single point of failure across multiple services;

• Helped a team developing a critical new service to ensure their database could scale with their expected traffic

How to Apply

At Zapier, we believe that diverse perspectives and experiences make us better, which is why we have a non-standard application process designed to promote inclusion and equity. We're looking for the best fit for each of our roles, regardless of the type of education or companies in your background, so we encourage you to apply even if your skills and experiences don’t exactly match the job description. All we ask is that you answer a few in-depth questions in our application that would typically be asked at the start of an interview process. This helps speed things up by letting us get to know you and your skillset a bit better right out of the gate. Please be sure to answer each question; the resume and CV fields are optional.

After you apply, you are going to hear back from us—even if we don’t see an immediate fit with our team. In fact, throughout the process, we strive to never go more than seven days without letting you know the status of your application. We know we’ll make mistakes from time to time, so if you ever have questions about where you stand or about the process, just ask your recruiter!

Zapier is an equal-opportunity employer and we're excited to work with talented and empathetic people of all identities. Zapier does not discriminate based on someone's identity in any aspect of hiring or employment as required by law and in line with our commitment to Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging and Equity. Our code of conduct provides a beacon for the kind of company we strive to be, and we celebrate our differences because those differences are what allow us to make a product that serves a global user base. Zapier will consider all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws.

Zapier is committed to inclusion. As part of this commitment, Zapier welcomes applications from individuals with disabilities and will work to provide reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodations are needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact [email protected].

Application Deadline:

The anticipated application window is 30 days from the date job is posted, unless the number of applicants requires it to close sooner or later, or if the position is filled.

Even though we’re an all-remote company, we still need to be thoughtful about where we have Zapiens working. Check outthis resource for a list of countries where we currently cannot have Zapiens permanently working.