This description is a summary of our understanding of the job description. Click on 'Apply' button to find out more.

Role Description

As a Staff Database Reliability Engineer, you will own the performance, reliability, and scaling strategy for our PostgreSQL Aurora infrastructure that powers creative workflows for leading brands. As a technical leader, you'll partner closely with backend engineering and leadership to architect scalable solutions, establish best-in-class database operations practices, and build the observability framework that keeps Air running at 99.99%+ uptime.

Core Responsibilities

• Ensure Database Reliability & Performance
  • Own the health, performance, and availability of Air's PostgreSQL Aurora infrastructure.
  • Proactively optimize database parameters, indexes, and query patterns to maintain sub-100ms p95 response times.
  • Uplevel migration practices and tooling to ensure zero-downtime schema changes as the platform scales.
  • Establish and maintain comprehensive backup, recovery, and disaster recovery procedures with documented RTO/RPO targets.
  • Partner with backend engineers to implement database best practices in application code (connection pooling, query optimization, caching strategies).
• Plan and Execute Long-Term Scaling Strategy
  • Develop multi-quarter roadmap to scale Air's database infrastructure to support 10x growth in asset volume and user activity.
  • Collaborate with backend engineers and product leadership to model data growth patterns and anticipate scaling inflection points.
  • Evaluate and implement horizontal scaling strategies (read replicas, sharding, partitioning) aligned with business needs.
  • Continuously assess AWS Aurora capabilities, PostgreSQL ecosystem innovations, and emerging database technologies for strategic advantage.
  • Design and implement database architecture that supports Air's AI-powered features and real-time creative workflows.
• Build Observability and Data Health Framework
  • Create comprehensive monitoring, alerting, and reporting systems to maintain database reliability and inform data-driven infrastructure decisions.
  • Implement detailed instrumentation for database performance metrics (query latency, connection pool utilization, replication lag, disk I/O).
  • Build automated alerting for anomalies in query performance, connection patterns, and resource utilization.
  • Create executive-level dashboards showing database health trends, capacity utilization, and cost efficiency.
  • Develop regular database health review cadence with engineering leadership to surface insights and drive continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• 5+ years using PostgreSQL and working with Distributed Database.
• Proficient in Postgres Database operations, tuning and query optimization.
• Familiar with database observability tooling and establishing best practices around health metric.
• Familiar with AWS Aurora or RDS.
• Entrepreneurial Drive: You like to work in public, own problems end-to-end, and move with intentional speed - so your best ideas ship fast and make a visible dent.
• Obsessed with Winning: Everyone at Air plays to win, says the hard thing, and progresses every day while building genuine relationships.

Requirements

• Act like a driver: Take initiative and ownership without waiting to be told.
• Work in public: Share ideas openly, get feedback early, and collaborate across teams.
• Play to win: Aim high and bring creativity, adaptability, and focus to your work.
• Say the hard thing: Give and receive feedback with clarity and respect.
• Disagree and commit: Debate honestly, then align quickly to move forward together.

Benefits

• Join a rapidly scaling company with a mission to transform the creative ops space. Your work will have a direct, tangible impact on [our ARR growth].
• We offer competitive medical, dental, and vision insurance, along with dependent coverage.
• You’ll also enjoy a generous work-from-home stipend, professional development reimbursement, and unlimited vacation days.
• We believe in the power of diverse perspectives and strive to create an inclusive culture that welcomes individuals from all backgrounds and experiences.
• If based in the US, the compensation range for this role is USD $160,000 to $240,000.
• If based in Canada, the compensation range for this role is CAD $165,000 to $248,000.