Database Reliability Engineer

Location: Wellington
Discipline: SaaS
Job type: Permanent
Salary: 90000 to 120000
Contact name: Matt Frizzell
Contact email: matt@placeme.nz
Job ref: 1658107
Published: 23 days ago
�� A high-growth, marketplace processing high-volume transactions across New Zealand and the US is looking for an experienced Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE) / DBA to join their Wellington-based Data team.

You will take ownership of the availability, performance, and security of a dual-engine database environment. Supporting mission-critical infrastructure, you will drive query optimisation, incident resolution, and automation efforts to keep platforms running smoothly at scale.


�� Key Responsibilities
  • Database Administration: Administer, patch, upgrade, and maintain production and non-production SQL Server and AWS Aurora MySQL database environments.
  • Performance Tuning & Optimisation: Analyse execution plans, indexing strategies, locking/blocking, and queries to eliminate bottlenecks.
  • Reliability & DR: Manage backup, recovery, disaster recovery (DR), and high-availability (HA) solutions across cloud infrastructure.
  • Incident Management & Root-Cause Analysis: Support on-call rotation, troubleshoot complex database issues, and perform thorough root-cause analysis.
  • Automation: Build scripts and operational tooling to eliminate manual tasks and streamline deployments.
  • Cross-Team Collaboration: Partner with Agile software development teams to optimise data access patterns, application performance, and database design.
�� What You'll BringMust-Haves
  • 5+ years of experience as a DBA, DBRE, or Database Engineer managing high-volume, business-critical systems.
  • Deep hands-on expertise in both Microsoft SQL Server and AWS Aurora MySQL.
  • Advanced knowledge of database internals: indexing strategies, query optimisation, execution plan analysis, and concurrency management.
  • Strong background in backup, restore, point-in-time recovery, and disaster recovery architectures.
  • Solid hands-on proficiency with AWS database services and cloud infrastructure.
  • Strong scripting and automation skills for database maintenance and operational tasks.
  • Experience working alongside engineering teams within an Agile software delivery environment.
Nice-to-Haves
  • Experience with Snowflake administration.
  • Hands-on experience with Terraform (Infrastructure as Code) and PowerShell.
  • Familiarity with Change Data Capture (CDC), replication, and data integration patterns.
  • Exposure to modern DevOps methodologies, microservices architectures, and CI/CD pipelines.
  • Experience using enterprise monitoring platforms (e.g., CloudWatch, New Relic, or Datadog).
�� What's on Offer
  • Scale & Impact: Work directly on high-throughput, cross-border transactional platforms used daily by thousands of businesses.
  • Modern Stack: Work alongside experienced software engineers in a modern AWS cloud environment.
  • Flexibility: Hybrid working arrangements based out of central Wellington, with a supportive and collaborative team culture.
  • Ownership: A supportive environment where you have real input into platform scalability and database architecture.

Not a 100% match? Apply anyway. We value potential and perspective over a perfect checklist.

About placeMe IT 
placeMe IT is all about connecting the right candidate with the right job in IT.  We promote diversity in the workplace and have a human-first approach, striving for meaningful connections.  If you feel like you don't cover every base for this role, that's fine and natural; we encourage you to apply anyway.  It's rare that somebody ticks every box!