Senior Software Engineer - Database

Airwallex; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex is looking for a Senior Software Engineer for their Database SRE team in Seattle. The ideal candidate will design and build AI-driven tooling and automation for database infrastructure, primarily with PostgreSQL and Redis.

This hybrid role emphasizes engineering rigor and proactive collaboration with product teams to ensure database reliability and performance. Qualifications include strong backend programming skills and significant experience with database management.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Deep experience with PostgreSQL, performance tuning, and operational best practices.
• Experience with Redis and cloud infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Design and build automation for database operations.
• Establish database best practices and participate in on-call rotations.
• Collaborate with teams to diagnose performance issues.

Skills

Backend languages proficiency (Python, Go, Java, Kotlin)

PostgreSQL expertise

Redis experience

Cloud expertise (GCP, Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker)

System design skills

Tools

Terraform

Kubernetes

Docker

Grafana

Prometheus

Datadog

Job description

Airwallex's Database team sits within the Infrastructure division and is responsible for the reliability, performance, security, and automation of Airwallex's database infrastructure – primarily Postgres (Google CloudSQL), Redis (Google Memorystore), Clickhouse and many more. The team's mission is to make databases invisible: product engineers should be able to provision, scale, and operate databases safely without needing to become database experts themselves. Today the team has 4 engineers across Singapore and China. We are expanding to Seattle to build a truly global team and to tackle the next generation of database automation – including AI-powered database operations, self‑service platforms, and unified observability. You will join a team that values engineering rigor, automation‑first thinking, and a bias toward building tools over performing manual toil.

This hybrid role is based in Seattle, WA.

What you'll do

As a Senior Software Engineer on the Database SRE team, you will design and build the platforms, automation, and AI‑driven tooling that power Airwallex's database infrastructure. This is not a traditional DBA role – you are an engineer who builds systems that automate database operations at scale. You'll work across Postgres (CloudSQL) and Redis (Memorystore) on GCP, tackling challenges at the intersection of database reliability engineering, platform automation, and AI. Your work will directly impact the availability, performance, and security of the data layer that underpins Airwallex's global payments platform.

Responsibilities

• Build a unified database observability platform: Design and implement an “eagle‑eye” view across all database instances, providing real‑time visibility into availability, security posture, reliability metrics, and latency – enabling proactive issue detection before incidents occur.
• Build MCP (Model Context Protocol) for safe AI agent access: Design and implement secure interfaces that allow AI agents to safely query and interact with production databases, enabling the next generation of AI‑powered internal tooling while maintaining strict security and access control.
• Build an Agentic AI DBA: Develop AI‑powered automation that handles routine DBA tasks – performance tuning, capacity planning, schema review, incident triage, and remediation – reducing manual toil and enabling the team to scale operations without scaling headcount.
• Build self‑service database platform: Create tooling that enables product engineering teams to provision, configure, scale, and manage Postgres and Redis instances through self‑service workflows, with built‑in guardrails for security, compliance, and best practices.
• Drive database reliability and operational excellence: Establish and enforce database best practices across the organization – connection pooling, query optimization, backup/restore strategies, failover procedures, and change management. Participate in on‑call rotations for database incidents.
• Collaborate with engineering teams: Partner with product engineers to diagnose database performance issues, review schema designs, and provide guidance on data modeling and access patterns for Postgres and Redis.

Who you are

We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory:

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience with strong proficiency in backend languages such as Python, Go, Java, or Kotlin.
• Deep experience with PostgreSQL – performance tuning, query optimization, replication, backup/recovery, schema design, and operational best practices.
• Experience with Redis – data modeling, clustering, persistence strategies, and operational management.
• Infrastructure and cloud expertise: Hands‑on experience with GCP (or equivalent cloud provider), infrastructure‑as‑code (Terraform), Kubernetes, and Docker.
• Demonstrated track record of building automation, tooling, or platforms that replaced manual operational work – not just operating databases, but engineering solutions that make operations scalable.
• Strong system design skills, with the ability to architect reliable, scalable infrastructure services.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with Google CloudSQL and/or Google Memorystore specifically.
• Experience building internal developer platforms, database‑as‑a‑service systems, or self‑service infrastructure tooling.
• Experience with AI/ML technologies, LLM integration, or building AI‑powered automation – particularly applied to infrastructure or operations use cases.
• Familiarity with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or similar patterns for safe programmatic access to production systems.
• Experience with observability tools (Grafana, Prometheus, Datadog) and building monitoring/alerting systems for database infrastructure.
• Experience in fintech, payments, or other regulated industries where data integrity, security, and compliance are critical.

Equal opportunity

Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.