Senior Database Administrator

Kraken; Aurora (CO); Remote; USD 80,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a pioneering team at a leading crypto exchange, where you will scale and optimize a high-load MariaDB cluster. This role offers a unique opportunity to enhance database availability and performance while implementing best practices in security and automation. As part of a fully remote company with a global presence, you will collaborate with talented professionals dedicated to accelerating the adoption of cryptocurrency. If you are passionate about blockchain technology and thrive in a dynamic environment, this position is perfect for you. Embrace the challenge and help shape the future of finance!

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience with MariaDB/MySQL in high-volume environments.
• Proven experience with CI/CD, GitOps, and infrastructure as code.

Responsibilities

• Scale and optimize a distributed high-load MariaDB cluster.
• Enhance high availability, disaster recovery, and monitoring solutions.
• Participate in a 24x7 on-call rotation for production support.

Skills

MariaDB/MySQL

Database Proxies (HAProxy, ProxySQL, MaxScale)

Bash

Python

Go

CI/CD Pipelines

GitOps

Terraform

AWS Services (VPC, EC2, RDS, Aurora, S3, IAM)

Docker

Kubernetes/Nomad

Database Security

DB Monitoring (Grafana, Datadog, Prometheus)

Communication Skills

Strategic Thinking

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Grafana

Datadog

Prometheus

Consul

PagerDuty

Job description

Building the Future of Crypto

Our Krakenites are a world-class team with crypto conviction, united by our desire to discover and unlock the potential of crypto and blockchain technology.

What makes us different?

Kraken is a mission-focused company rooted in crypto values. As a Krakenite, you’ll join us on our mission to accelerate the global adoption of crypto, so that everyone can achieve financial freedom and inclusion. For over a decade, Kraken’s focus on our mission and crypto ethos has attracted many of the most talented crypto experts in the world.

Before you apply, please read the Kraken Culture page to learn more about our internal culture, values, and mission. We also expect candidates to familiarize themselves with the Kraken app. Learn how to create a Kraken account here.

As a fully remote company, we have Krakenites in 70+ countries who speak over 50 languages. Krakenites are industry pioneers who develop premium crypto products for experienced traders, institutions, and newcomers to the space. Kraken is committed to industry-leading security, crypto education, and world-class client support through our products like Kraken Pro, Desktop, Wallet, and Kraken Futures.

Become a Krakenite and build the future of crypto!

The team

Come work with an experienced team for one of the top crypto exchanges in a rapidly evolving space. The DBA team is responsible for designing and implementing scalable solutions that allow the company to reliably and securely support our customer base. The role involves a combination of production support, support for other teams, and interesting project work to further scale and solidify the system. You will be uniquely challenged in a space where security, performance, availability, scalability, data integrity and productivity are all paramount to our mission.

The opportunity

• Scale and optimize a distributed high-load MariaDB cluster, ensuring high performance and scalability.

• Enhance and improve high availability, disaster recovery, backup/recovery, and monitoring solutions.

• Troubleshoot various performance and availability issues across the database and infrastructure stack.

• Manage database security, patching, and upgrades while ensuring best practices.

• Bring a DevOps mindset to database operations, implementing automation, CI/CD, and GitOps workflows.

• Improve infrastructure as code, containerization, and cloud deployment strategies.

• Help development teams be more productive through better tooling, automation, and best practices.

• Participate in a 24x7 on-call rotation and provide off-hours production support when needed.

Skills you should HODL

• Expert knowledge of MariaDB/MySQL (5+ years) with experience in high-volume production environments, advanced replication schemes, sharding, and tuning.

• Familiarity with database proxies like HAProxy, ProxySQL, and MaxScale for high availability and load balancing.

• Strong programming and scripting skills e.g. Bash, Python, Go or similar.

• Have the right automation mindset and proven experience with CI/CD pipelines, GitOps, and infrastructure as code, preferably Terraform.

• Hands-on experience with AWS services (VPC, EC2, RDS, Aurora, S3, IAM) and cloud-native best practices.

• Proficiency with Docker and Kubernetes/Nomad for managing scalable and resilient database infrastructure.

• Deep understanding of database security, access control, patching, and compliance best practices.

• Experience with visualization and DB monitoring stack e.g. Grafana, Datadog, Prometheus, Consul, PagerDuty, etc.

• Strong communication skills, strategic thinking, and a team-oriented mindset to help bridge database operations and DevOps workflows.

Nice to Haves

• Experience implementing GitOps methodologies with GitLab, GitHub Actions, or ArgoCD.

• Knowledge of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles.

• Passion for cryptocurrency and decentralized technologies.