Database Engineer

Springer; Camden Town; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading research and publishing organization in the UK is seeking an experienced Database Engineer. The successful candidate will maintain and optimize database systems, provide expert services, and drive the evolution of the database services using an Infrastructure as Code mindset. Candidates should have experience with MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and cloud infrastructure. The role offers collaboration within a multidisciplinary team and opportunities for growth.

Qualifications

• Knowledge and experience of MongoDB and PostgreSQL.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code for automation and configuration management.
• Programming experience with Golang, Ruby, Python or at least one modern language.
• Experience in operating and maintaining cloud infrastructure.
• Experience with automation frameworks.
• Understanding of database architecture, backup and recovery, and performance tuning.
• Experience with database clustering and replication mechanisms.

Responsibilities

• Share the responsibility of maintenance tasks and documentation.
• Provide expert services and guidance to development teams.
• Contribute to the evolution of database services.
• Improve and optimize the existing database platform.
• Help customers choose the best database solution.
• Maintain and improve systems in production.
• Automate database management processes.
• Ensure high availability through clustering and replication.
• Support operational issues and prevent recurrences.
• Document processes related to database management.
• Monitor and optimize database performance.
• Collaborate across the engineering department.

Skills

MongoDB

PostgreSQL

Infrastructure as Code

Golang

Ruby

Python

Cloud infrastructure

Automation frameworks

Database architecture

Backup and recovery

Performance tuning

Database clustering

Replication mechanisms

Tools

Terraform

Puppet

Ansible

Docker

Job description

Overview

This role is within the Database Engineering team, who are responsible for providing our managed database platform. The team consists of Platform Engineers and Database Engineers who work together to provide managed database services - and the underlying cloud-based infrastructure - for internal customers across the organisation. As with all teams in EE, we closely collaborate with the departmental teams that provide the platform's surrounding and centralised services (CI/CD system, observability tools and our internal runtime platforms) and so with all the product development teams within Springer Nature.

Responsibilities

• Together with the team, share the responsibility of maintenance tasks, documentation, running updates and keeping our systems secure.
• Provide expert services and guidance to development and product teams across Springer Nature and further develop our database infrastructure platform.
• Contribute to the evolution of our database services through leveraging IaC, maximise customer self-service and live the continuous integration mindset.
• Help to improve and optimise the existing database platform to maximise capacity for consultation with internal customers.
• As one of the database experts for relational and document-store dbs, help customers to choose the best solution for their needs, providing advice and guidance on schema setup and query tuning.
• Maintain and improve the database systems in production and development environments.
• Provisioning, configuring, patching, upgrading, and maintaining databases.
• Automating the management of new and existing databases to ensure that processes are repeatable and scalable.
• Ensuring high availability of databases through clustering, replication, and other techniques.
• Taking an active role in supporting and in finding the root cause of operational issues and preventing recurrences.
• Contributing to our managed database platform, and working processes, which we use as a foundation for providing our services to the rest of the company.
• Working with the team to document processes, procedures, and technical designs related to database management.
• Monitoring and optimising database performance, including configuration, resource usage and query tuning.
• Taking an active role in collaborating across the engineering department on database related topics and integrations.
• Working with colleagues, internal customers and stakeholders on new features and capabilities.

You will have the opportunity to work on new challenges and drive the evolution of our services in a collaborative and supportive environment.

Qualifications & Skills

• Knowledge and experience of MongoDB and PostgreSQL
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code, for automation and configuration management
• Programming experience with Golang, Ruby, Python or at least one modern language
• Experience in operating and maintaining cloud infrastructure
• Experience with automation frameworks (e.g. Terraform, Puppet or Ansible)
• Understanding of database architecture, backup and recovery, and performance tuning
• Experience with database clustering and replication mechanisms

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Experience of working with Cloud SQL
• Experience using Google Cloud Platform
• Experience of using (and ideally developing) REST APIs
• Experience of developing web applications
• Experience with common CI/CD tools
• Docker and containerisation
• Experience in contributing to the architecture and design of new and existing systems
• Unix shell scripting or programming experience
• High user and customer orientation
• High sensitivity for security-relevant issues
• Strong conceptual skills, logical/analytical thinking & problem-solving skills

About us

We are looking forward to your application. After reviewing your CV our Talent Acquisition team will contact you to schedule a short initial phone/video call. After getting this first step we will run 2-3 rounds (introductory, technical, cultural) with you - all of these with different members of the Engineering Enablement team. When appropriate these phases will be held via phone /video calls.

Springer Nature is one of the world's leading global research, educational and professional publishers. It is home to an array of respected and trusted brands and imprints, with more than 170 years of combined history behind them, providing quality content through a range of innovative products and services. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals and resources reach millions of people, helping researchers and scientists to discover, students to learn and professionals to achieve their goals and ambitions. The company has around 10,000 staff in over 50 countries.

We're looking for an experienced Database Engineer, with an IaC mindset, who will help us fulfil our mission to enable product teams to focus on delivering value.

Engineering Enablement

The Engineering Enablement (EE) department consists of around 60 people, spread over teams that closely collaborate to fulfil our mission. In Springer Nature Technology (SNT) we serve different core expertise: PaaS, Databases, Observability and Cloud- and Release Engineering. You will join a multidisciplinary team with different nationalities, backgrounds and experience levels. We are a very distributed department but sometimes we travel to work with each other in person. We are based around the globe with main locations in London, Dordrecht, Berlin, Lisbon and New York. Our Technology We have built platforms serving hundreds of developers at scale around the world. We are making more and more use of Kubernetes as a backend container platform and integrating this into our platform offering. We are leveraging the power of Kubernetes to build a new PaaS that will co-exist with the current Cloud Foundry Platform, as well as managing an internal database platform that runs over 1,200 database servers.