Senior Database Engineer

G Adventures; Toronto; On-site; CAD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

G Adventures seeks a Data Engineer / DBA to enhance our data infrastructure, focusing on PostgreSQL and AWS databases. You will design databases, manage large datasets, and ensure effective data workflows. Join us in using data to make a positive impact on travel experiences globally.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Competitive benefits package

Birthday day off

Vacation time

Enhanced Parental Leave

Learning and growth opportunities

Employee Resource Groups

Qualifications

• 5+ years in Data Engineering or DBA role with PostgreSQL expertise.
• Experience with Amazon RDS/Aurora required.
• Proficiency in AWS services like S3, Glue, Lambda essential.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain high-performance PostgreSQL databases.
• Manage data ingestion and build ETL/ELT pipelines.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure data quality.

Skills

PostgreSQL administration

AWS services

ETL processes

Data modeling

Scripting (Python, Bash)

Data governance

Monitoring with Datadog

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Tools

GitHub

Terraform

CloudFormation

Job description

About Us

G Adventures is the world’s largest small-group adventure travel company and we’ve been making epic travel memories happen on all seven continents for over 30 years.

Our mission is simple: to change lives through travel. And not just our travelers’ either. Since day one, our tours have been built to establish meaningful relationships with local communities, directly benefiting the people and places we visit at every step of our tours.

With the demand for travel coming back strong, we are set up and excited for this next chapter in our company’s story — and we’d love for you to be a part of it.

Our DNA revolves around building, nurturing, and developing a diverse culture of people and a true sense of belonging, where everyone is encouraged to bring their authentic self to work each and every day. You’ll have the opportunity to grow your career, and yourself, alongside a passionate, talented, and welcoming community that works hard to spread goodness around the world.

If all that sounds like your kind of thing, well, we can’t wait for you to join us.

Role Overview

As a Data Engineer / DBA, you will play a critical role in our data infrastructure, focusing on the seamless integration, transformation, and management of large-scale datasets. Your responsibilities will include designing and optimizing PostgreSQL databases in Amazon RDS and Aurora environments, building robust ETL/ELT pipelines, and ensuring data quality and accessibility. You will collaborate closely with software engineers, data scientists, and analysts to support data-driven decision-making across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Database Design & Maintenance: Design, implement, and maintain high-performance PostgreSQL databases in Amazon RDS and Aurora environments.

• Data Ingestion & Transformation: Manage data ingestion from diverse sources into cloud-based data platforms and build optimized ETL/ELT pipelines for large-scale data processing.

• Data Lake Integration: Export structured and semi-structured data to modern data lakes (e.g., Amazon S3, AWS Lake Formation, Redshift).

• Performance Monitoring: Monitor and improve database performance, security, and availability using tools like Datadog and CloudWatch.

• Collaboration: Work closely with software engineers, data scientists, and analysts to ensure data quality, reliability, and accessibility.

• Automation: Automate data workflows using tools such as AWS Lambda, Glue, Step Functions, Fivetran, SnapLogic, and Airflow.

• Disaster Recovery: Implement and manage backup, disaster recovery, and failover strategies.

• Best Practices: Establish and enforce best practices for data architecture, schema design, and database operations.

• Monitoring & Alerting: Implement and maintain Datadog monitoring for AWS Aurora PostgreSQL and RDS, ensuring real-time visibility into performance, slow queries, and resource utilization. Define custom Datadog dashboards, alerts, and metrics to support proactive database performance management and incident response.
  

Qualifications

Required:

• 5+ years of experience in a Data Engineering or DBA role.

• Deep expertise in PostgreSQL administration, performance tuning, and SQL optimization.

• Proven experience with Amazon RDS/Aurora, including provisioning, scaling, monitoring, and securing databases.

• Strong hands-on experience with AWS services, especially S3, Glue, IAM, Lambda, and CloudWatch.

• Familiarity with data lake architectures and best practices for exporting structured and semi-structured data.

• Solid understanding of data modeling, ETL processes, and schema design.

• Proficiency in scripting languages (Python, Bash, etc.) for automation and data wrangling.

• Experience managing large datasets (hundreds of GB to TB scale) with attention to performance and cost-efficiency.

• Experience using Datadog for monitoring cloud infrastructure and database health, including metric collection, alerting, and log analysis.

• Ability to define custom monitors and dashboards in Datadog for RDS, Aurora, Lambda, and Redshift.

• Experience using GitHub for version control, collaboration, and code management across data pipelines, infrastructure scripts, and database configurations.

• Comfortable working in a pull request-driven workflow and following branching strategies, reviews, and approvals.
  

Preferred:

• Experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation).

• Familiarity with streaming platforms (Kafka, Kinesis).

• Exposure to data governance, cataloging, and compliance best practices.
  

Soft Skills & Work Ethic

• Excellent written and verbal communication.

• Strong problem-solving abilities.

• High attention to detail.

• Ability to multitask and prioritize effectively.

• Collaborative mindset with cross-functional teams.

• Strong organizational and time-management skills.

• Adaptability in a fast-paced environment.

What do we offer you?

• Competitive salary commensurate with the role

• Competitive benefits package

• Birthday day off

• Vacation time for you to recharge

• Enhanced Parental Leave

• Learning and growth opportunities

• Employee Resource Groups

*Applicable based on location*

G Adventures is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment. We consider all qualified applicants.