Senior Database Design Engineer

Quidel Ortho unites the strengths of Quidel Corporation and Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, creating a world-leading in vitro diagnostics company with award-winning expertise in immunoassay and molecular testing, clinical chemistry and transfusion medicine. We are more than 6,000 strong and do business in over 130 countries, providing answers with fast, accurate and consistent testing where and when they are needed most – home to hospital, lab to clinic.

Our culture puts our team members first and prioritizes actions that support happiness, inspiration and engagement. We strive to build meaningful connections with each other as we believe that employee happiness and business success are linked. Join us in our mission to transform the power of diagnostics into a healthier future for all.

At Quidel Ortho, we’re advancing the power of diagnostics for a healthier future for all. Join our mission as our next Senior Database Design Engineer to join our R&D Instrument Platforms organization. This role serves as the subject matter expert for relational database design and tuning for Linux-based medical devices with on-device databases, with ongoing stewardship of the database architecture over the product lifecycle.

The successful candidate will own database schema design, query strategy, and cross-component data access patterns to ensure long-term maintainability, performance, and regulatory compliance. This is an opportunity to shape the data backbone of safety-critical systems that must operate reliably for years in the field, often without frequent upgrades or migrations.

NOTE:

If you are working remotely, you must be able to travel to Rochester, NY on as-needed basis (about once a quarter).

This role will focus on the design and implementation of robust applications for distributed Linux-based software systems while leading efforts in database schema and integration. Candidates should demonstrate expertise in relational database design and on-device database integration.

• Serve as the database architecture owner for PostgreSQL or equivalent database instances embedded within medical devices running Linux on workstation-class hardware.
• Design relational schemas, views, indexes, and constraints that balance performance, maintainability, and regulatory traceability.
• Own and maintain the database design over time, including governance of schema changes, technical debt management, documentation, and coordination of design evolution across releases.
• Act as the central design authority for how multiple software components read from and write to shared database resources.
• Design database interfaces and usage patterns that minimize the need for future migrations, while still enabling safe, versioned evolution when required.
• Lead query optimization and performance tuning, including execution plan analysis, indexing strategy, and long-term capacity planning.
• Define standards for database versioning, migration strategy, and backward compatibility suitable for regulated, fielded systems.
• Collaborate with system architects, middleware developers, and UI teams to ensure database access patterns are well-defined, testable, and stable.
• Provide technical leadership in design reviews related to data modeling, persistence strategy, and cross-process communication via the database.
• Support backup, restore, and recovery strategies appropriate for on-device databases in production medical equipment.
• Participate in requirements, architecture, design, verification, and validation activities within a regulated quality management system (FDA, IEC 62304, ISO 13485).
• Perform other work-related duties…