Database Engineer; DBA)

About THG Ingenuity

THG Ingenuity is a fully integrated digital commerce ecosystem, designed to power brands without limits. Our global end-to-end tech platform is comprised of three products: THG Commerce, THG Studios, THG Fulfilment.

Each represents a single, unified solution, overcoming challenges and taking brands direct-to-consumer. Our client portfolio includes globally recognised brands such as Coca-Cola, Nestle, Elemis, Homebase, and Proctor & Gamble.

Company: THG Ingenuity

Location: Manchester (Head Office)

Reports to: Database Platform Manager

We are looking for a Database Engineer to help run and improve our database platform.

Our estate runs on Google Cloud Platform following a recent migration to self-managed services. There is plenty still to do in the next phase of modernising the estate, and you will be hands-on in that work as well as in the day-to-day running of the platform.

You will work alongside a small team of database engineers and closely with engineering and infrastructure teams, keeping our database environments secure, reliable and performant. There is real scope to grow here, and you will be supported to deepen your technical expertise and take on more as you do.

The role participates in a rotating on-call rota and occasionally requires out-of-hours work to support deployments, maintenance or incident response.

Database administration

• Install, configure, maintain and upgrade PostgreSQL and SQL Server environments across development, test and production
• Ensure database servers are securely configured, patched and compliant with operational standards
• Own backup, restore and maintenance strategies, and test recovery procedures regularly
• Maintain database security, access control and auditing practices

Cloud and infrastructure

• Deploy and manage database environments in Google Cloud Platform, using Compute Engine instances or managed services such as Cloud SQL where appropriate
• Configure networking, storage and security controls for cloud-hosted database systems
• Support the remaining on-premise footprint and the realities of running a hybrid estate

Modernisation

• Contribute to migration and consolidation work across the estate, covering schema and code conversion, data migration, testing and cutover
• Help shape and deliver the next phase of modernisation across the estate
• Bring ideas forward: if you think there is a better way to do something, we want to hear it

Resilience and performance

• Build and maintain high availability and disaster recovery solutions, including replication
• Identify and resolve performance issues, and work with development teams on query, indexing and schema design
• Maintain monitoring and alerting so problems are caught proactively rather than reported by users

Automation and change

• Automate provisioning, patching, backups and routine maintenance
• Keep all scripts, configuration and database change in Git Hub, delivered through CI/CD pipelines and proper change management
• Contribute to database standards, runbooks and documentation

Operational support

• Participate in the rotating on-call rota supporting production systems
• Provide day-to-day support to engineering and infrastructure teams
• Take part in incident response and post-incident review

• PostgreSQL (core requirement): solid production administration experience covering configuration, upgrades, backup and recovery, replication and basic performance tuning
• Microsoft SQL Server: production administration including availability groups, backups, patching and maintenance
• SQL: able to write and optimise complex queries and read an execution plan
• Google Cloud Platform: deploying and managing database infrastructure in GCP (Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, storage, networking, IAM)
• High availability and disaster recovery: supporting HA/DR architectures and replication technologies
• Backup and recovery: strong understanding of strategies and hands-on restore experience
• Git Hub and CI/CD: working with source control day to day and comfortable with change management in a production environment
• Automation: scripting in Python, Power Shell or Bash to remove manual toil
• Monitoring and alerting: using enterprise tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, Cloud Monitoring or equivalent
• On-call: willing to join a rotating rota and handle production incidents
• Communication: clear written and verbal communication, and effective collaboration with engineering teams

• Migration experience: moving…