Sr. Database Reliability Engineer II

NinjaTrader; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401k with 3.5% Company Match

Generous PTO and holidays

Life and Disability Insurance

Job summary

NinjaTrader, a leading trading platform, seeks a Sr. Database Reliability Engineer II in Chicago to architect and optimize the data platform powering core trading apps. This role blends software development with deep MySQL expertise to drive scalability, resiliency, and developer productivity.

You will collaborate with engineers and platform teams to implement scalable schemas, tooling, and best practices, ensuring high availability and performance across the data stack.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Experience building backend applications using Java, C#, Go, Python, Kotlin, Scala, or similar languages.
• Expert-level experience with MySQL in large-scale production environments.
• Deep understanding of SQL optimization, execution plans, indexing, transactions, isolation levels, locking and concurrency.

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve MySQL schemas to support high-volume transactional workloads.
• Drive improvements to data platform architecture, migrations, and scalability initiatives.
• Analyze and optimize SQL queries, indexes and execution plans to improve performance.
• Develop production-quality software to improve persistence layer and tooling.
• Design scalable data models balancing performance and maintainability.
• Lead database performance tuning across applications and services.
• Drive modernization initiatives for database architecture and deployment processes.
• Design and implement safe, repeatable database migration strategies.

Skills

Java

C#

Go

Python

MySQL

SQL optimization

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

Google Cloud Platform

Cloud SQL for MySQL

Job description

Disclaimer: Please be advised that the most accurate and up-to-date information about our open roles—including job descriptions, compensation, and benefits—can only be guaranteed on our official job board. For the latest listings and details, please visit: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/ninjatrader.

JOIN US ON OUR MISSION TO BECOME THE #1 RETAIL TRADING PLATFORM IN THE WORLD

Welcome to the dynamic world of NinjaTrader! As an industry-leading trading platform and futures broker, we're empowering traders to take control of their financial destiny. How do we do it? We provide cutting-edge products and services that enhance the trading journey. Whether a seasoned pro or just starting out, NinjaTrader equips traders with award-winning software and brokerage services to navigate the world's leading financial markets with confidence.

Our growth story is nothing short of exhilarating. Since 2003, NinjaTrader has been dedicated to understanding and supporting traders on their journey toward trading triumph. Through those efforts, our user base has grown to over 2 million users and we have become the number one rated futures brokerage worldwide.

But we're not stopping there. We're constantly evolving, pushing boundaries, and modernizing the futures industry. Our commitment to innovation means users will always have access to dynamic tools, real-time support, and a community of like-minded traders.

So, why work at NinjaTrader? Here, you're not just part of a team; you're part of a movement. We empower employees to reach new heights in their careers by providing a dynamic culture focused on social connection, professional development, and employee recognition initiatives. Sounds too good to be true? Take it from our employees.

Join us as we redefine what's possible in trading, advocate for our customers, and continue our journey toward becoming the world's top retail-focused trading platform in the world.

What you'll do:

As a Sr. Database Reliability Engineer II, you will help architect, evolve, and optimize the data platform powering NinjaTrader's core trading applications. This is not a traditional Database Administrator (DBA) role. We're looking for a software engineer with deep MySQL/Postgres expertise who enjoys solving complex data challenges while remaining actively involved in software development.

You'll partner closely with software engineers, architects, and platform teams to improve database performance, evolve our data architecture, build developer tooling, and establish engineering best practices that enable our platform to continue scaling. You'll play a key role in shaping the future direction of our data platform by driving initiatives that improve scalability, resiliency, developer productivity, and operational excellence.

This role is ideal for someone who has spent their career building production software and naturally became the database expert responsible for solving performance bottlenecks, designing scalable schemas, and improving application reliability.

In this role you will:

• Design and evolve MySQL schemas supporting high-volume transactional workloads
• Define and drive improvements to NinjaTrader's data platform architecture, including online schema changes, zero/low-downtime database migrations, blue/green deployments, and scalability initiatives that support long-term platform growth.
• Analyze and optimize SQL queries, indexes, and execution plans to improve application performance
• Develop production-quality software that improves our persistence layer, developer tooling, and data platform capabilities
• Design scalable data models that balance performance, maintainability, and long-term growth
• Build reusable libraries, frameworks, and tooling that simplify data access and improve developer productivity across engineering teams
• Lead database performance tuning initiatives across applications and services
• Drive modernization initiatives for database architecture, deployment processes, and operational reliability
• Design and implement safe, repeatable database migration strategies supporting continuous delivery
• Investigate and resolve complex production issues involving application performance, database behavior, locking, concurrency, and data integrity
• Establish engineering standards and best practices for schema design, indexing, SQL development, database migrations, and data access patterns
• Partner with Platform Engineering to improve database monitoring, backup strategies, disaster recovery, and operational resilience
• Leverage Google Cloud Platform services, including Cloud SQL, Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging, and related tooling, to improve the reliability, scalability, and observability of our data platform
• Mentor engineers on data modeling, SQL optimization, MySQL best practices, and application performance optimization
• Lead technical design discussions and architecture reviews related to database-backed applications
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend solutions that improve platform scalability, maintainability, and engineering efficiency
• Serve as a technical leader and trusted advisor for database architecture, application performance, and data platform best practices

What you'll need:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong experience building backend applications using Java, C#, Go, Python, Kotlin, Scala, or similar modern programming languages
• Expert-level experience with MySQL in large-scale production environments
• Deep understanding of:
• SQL optimization
• Query execution plans
• Indexing strategies
• Transactions and isolation levels
• Locking and concurrency
• Schema design and normalization
• Replication and high availability
• Experience designing scalable database schemas for high-volume transactional applications
• Experience troubleshooting complex application and database performance issues
• Strong understanding of software architecture, distributed systems, and engineering best practices
• Experience leading technical initiatives and influencing architectural decisions across engineering teams
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to engineers and cross-functional stakeholders
• Passion for improving developer productivity by building automation, developer tooling, database testing frameworks, performance benchmarking harnesses, and engineering best practices.
• Experience building and operating applications on Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Experience with Cloud SQL for MySQL
• Experience supporting financial services, trading platforms, or other high-throughput transactional systems
• Experience working in startup or high-growth engineering environments where engineers owned both application development and database performance
• Experience improving developer productivity through tooling and automation
• Experience implementing observability solutions, performance monitoring, and database telemetry
• Experience leveraging AI/ML tools or technologies to improve software development, operational efficiency, or engineering productivity

Compensation:

The salary range for this role will be $130,000.00 - $180,000.00 USD. In addition, this position will also receive an annual target bonus of 10%. Bonus pay at NinjaTrader is based on individual performance (50%) as well as company/team performance (50%).

Salary and bonus earnings are only two components of the total compensation package offered by NinjaTrader. NinjaTrader offers a 401K plan through ADP under which the company will match up to 3.5% of employee contributions. Annual paid time off allowance accrues at a rate of 18 days per year plus seven paid holidays.

All offered compensation will be based on assessed experience and is subject to change at the offer stage.

Location:

This role is based in Chicago, IL. *There may be remote flexibility for exceptional candidates in the following states: California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington DC, Wisconsin.

Hybrid:

For Chicago-based employees, we follow a hybrid work schedule: In-office Tuesday through Thursday, with remote work on Mondays and Fridays. In addition to these weekly remote days, we offer:

• 20 additional flex remote days annually
• 5 Company Wide Office-Optional weeks tied to major holidays

Our Core Benefits Include:

• Generous PTO
• 7 Paid Holidays Annually + 5 Conditional Holidays Annually
• 1 Service Day Annually
• 401k with 3.5% Company Match
• Life and Disability Insurance Covered 100% by NinjaTrader

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.