Platform Engineer - Databases

Hybrid; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A technology company is seeking a Platform Engineer to design and automate reliable database services. You'll be responsible for PostgreSQL management, building automation pipelines, and collaborating with teams to enhance database offerings. Ideal candidates should have strong skills in Kubernetes and automation tools like Terraform and Ansible, along with a software development mindset. This role offers opportunity to shape data services within the organization's developer platform.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with PostgreSQL in production including administration, tuning, and HA/DR.
• Strong knowledge of Kubernetes fundamentals with experience running stateful workloads.
• Proficiency with Infrastructure-as-Code automation tools.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain production-ready PostgreSQL databases.
• Build and manage automation pipelines for managing database clusters.
• Collaborate with developers and platform engineers to integrate data services.

Skills

Database Expertise with PostgreSQL

Kubernetes Expertise

Automation Skills with Terraform/Ansible

Software Development Mindset with Python/Go

Observability Experience with Prometheus/Grafana

Collaboration and Communication

Tools

Ansible

Terraform

Helm

Prometheus

Grafana

ELK

Job description

As a Platform Engineer focused on Databases, your mission is to design, automate, and operate reliable, scalable, and developer-friendly database services. You’ll play a central role in embedding database capabilities into our Internal Developer Platform (IDP), enabling 500+ developers to consume data services seamlessly, securely, and with minimal friction.

This is both a hands‑on and strategic role: you will roll up your sleeves to build and automate Database deployments, while at the same time shaping how data services are delivered as part of a self‑service platform. By combining database expertise with strong automation and software engineering skills, you will ensure our platform accelerates developer productivity while maintaining enterprise‑grade reliability and compliance.

If you are passionate about operating databases the DevOps way, and thrive at the intersection of data platforms, automation, and developer enablement, this role is for you.

Responsibilities

• Database platform ownership

  Design, implement, and maintain production‑ready PostgreSQL (and other databases).

  Build and manage automation pipelines (Ansible, Terraform, Helm, Operators) for provisioning, upgrading, and managing database clusters.

  Ensure deployments are secure, compliant, and resilient, including HA/DR and backup/restore frameworks.

• Platform and self‑service integration

  Embed database services into the IDP so they can be consumed via self‑service portals, APIs, or GitOps workflows.

  Define and maintain “golden paths” for database provisioning and lifecycle management.

  Collaborate with developers, SREs, and platform engineers to integrate data services seamlessly into application lifecycles.

• Reliability, observability, and compliance

  Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting for database workloads (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, etc.).

  Establish SLOs and performance benchmarks to ensure system reliability.

  Drive compliance by embedding security controls, governance, and audit capabilities into database automation.

• Collaboration and enablement

  Partner with engineering teams to understand requirements and evolve database offerings.

  Provide clear documentation, onboarding material, and training to enable developers to use data services independently.

  Act as a subject matter expert for databases within the platform engineering team.

Job requirements

• Database Expertise: hands‑on experience with PostgreSQL in production (administration, tuning, HA/DR, migrations).
• Kubernetes Expertise: Strong knowledge of Kubernetes fundamentals and practical experience running stateful workloads, ideally using Operators.
• Automation Skills: Proficiency with Infrastructure‑as‑Code and automation tools (Terraform, Ansible, Helm, or similar).
• Software Development Mindset: Experience with Python, Go, or similar languages to build automation, APIs, and integrations.
• Observability Experience: Familiarity with monitoring/alerting tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, or Datadog.
• Collaboration and Communication: Strong ability to collaborate across engineering teams and communicate effectively in English.
• Bonus: Experience with other databases (MySQL, Elasticsearch, Cassandra) and exposure to public cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure).

The above list of duties is not exclusive or exhaustive and the post holder will be required to undertake tasks that are reasonably expected within the scope and grading of the post.