Principal Database Engineer

Join to apply for the Principal Database Engineer role at Stax Bill Full‑time Description

As a Principal Database Engineer, you will set the technical direction for our database platforms and partner with engineering teams to ensure scalability, reliability, security, and cost efficiency. This is not a traditional DBA role. Instead, you will design, build, and automate cloud‑native database solutions that power our products and internal systems  will join our Database Engineering team and act as a senior technical leader, hands‑on with architecture and automation, while also mentoring others and influencing how we approach data infrastructure across the company.

• Own the data platform:
  Design, implement, and evolve database systems (Aurora, RDS, Redshift, etc.) that meet performance, resiliency, and compliance requirements.
• Automate relentlessly:
  Build infrastructure‑as‑code, CI/CD pipelines for database changes, and self‑service tooling for developers.
• Enable scalability:
  Architect solutions that support growth, high availability, and disaster recovery in a multi‑account AWS environment.
• Champion observability:
  Implement monitoring, alerting, and performance tuning strategies to ensure proactive issue detection and resolution.
• Collaborate cross‑functionally:
  Partner with application engineers, cloud engineers, and security to align database practices with organizational goals.
• Drive modernization:
  Lead the migration from legacy systems to cloud‑first platforms, ensuring minimal disruption and long‑term maintainability.
• Mentor and guide:
  Elevate the skills of the Database Engineering team, sharing best practices and setting technical standards.

• Proven experience as a Senior or Principal Database Engineer with expertise in multiple cloud‑native databases (MySQL [Primary Focus], Oracle, SQL Server, Postgre
  
  SQL)
• Strong hands‑on skills with AWS data services (Aurora, Redshift, RDS, S3).
• Deep understanding of database performance, query optimization, indexing, partitioning, and replication strategies.
• Strong background in automation and infrastructure‑as‑code (Terraform, Cloud Formation, or CDK).
• Proficiency in at least one of the following languages:
  Type Script, Python, C#, or Go, with the ability to navigate existing codebases and build new tooling for deployment as standalone applications or serverless functions (e.g., AWS Lambda).
• Experience with observability stacks (Datadog, Cloud Watch, or similar).
• Strong grasp of security, compliance, and cost optimization in cloud environments.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills.

• Experience with user access management systems (SSO, SCIM, SAML, OIDC)
• Exposure to data pipelines, ETL, or event‑driven architectures (Kinesis, Kafka).
• Knowledge of security principles such as Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) and Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP)
• Familiarity with encryption strategies for data at rest and in transit (e.g., KMS, TLS, customer‑managed keys, envelope encryption)
• Awareness of compliance frameworks (PCI‑DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA) and how they affect data platform design

Mid‑Senior level

Full‑time

Information Technology