Database Engineer (DBA)

Starling is the UK's first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! Our vision is fast technology, fair service, and honest values. All at the tap of a phone, all the time.

We are about giving customers a new way to spend, save and manage their money while taking better care of the planet which has seen us become a multi-award winning bank that now employs over 2300 across five offices in London, Cardiff, Dublin, Southampton, and soon to be Manchester. Our journey started in 2014, and since then we have surpassed three million accounts (and four account types!) with 350,000 business customers. We are a fully licensed UK bank but at the heart, we are a tech first company, enabling our platform to deliver brilliant products.

Our technologists are at the very heart of Starling and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment that is all about building things, creating new stuff, and disruptive technology that keeps us on the cutting edge of fintech. We operate a flat structure to empower you to make decisions regardless of what your primary responsibilities may be, innovation and collaboration will be at the core of everything you do. Help is never far away in our open culture, you will find support in your team and from across the business, we are in this together!

The way to thrive and shine within Starling is to be a self-driven individual and be able to take full ownership of everything around you: From building things, designing, discovering, to sharing knowledge with your colleagues and making sure all processes are efficient and productive to deliver the best possible results for our customers. Our purpose is underpinned by five Starling values: Listen, Keep It Simple, Do The Right Thing, Own It, and Aim For Greatness.

Hybrid Working

We have a Hybrid approach to working here at Starling - our preference is that you're located within a commutable distance of one of our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person.

Our Data Environment

Our Data teams are aligned to divisions covering the following Banking Services & Products, Customer Identity & Financial Crime and Data & ML Engineering. Our Data teams are excited about delivering meaningful and impactful insights to both the business and more importantly our customers.

About the Role:

Working within our engineering team, you will be responsible for the application and infrastructure used to support our PostgreSQL databases. This will include:

• Working within the DBA team to build out our Database Manager application used to manage and monitor our databases
• Working with our teams to understand their database needs and make adjustments from an application and infrastructure standpoint.
• Monitoring and optimising the performance of databases
• Query analysis to understand how our databases are being used
• Allocating for systems requirements and planning future needs
• Working within the team to understand how to manage and maintain Postgres database infrastructure
• Monitor and optimise the performance of our ever growing PostgreSQL database
• Keep our database estate up to date - both from a vulnerability management and supported Postgres version point of view
• Managing and monitoring data replication
• Lead regular disaster recovery testing initiatives
• Own and improve technical documentation and processes for database tasks - enabling teams to self help with e.g. allocating system storage and planning storage needs; performing upgrades; optimising database queries
• Own and improve monitoring dashboards and alerts
• Own cost optimisation - reviewing and proposing recommendations for optimising database footprint, including reserved instance lifecycle management
• Embrace automation and be reluctant for manual implementation
• Implement security best practices
• Demonstrate knowledge of new technologies and changes in the industry

Requirements

The ideal candidate will have experience in the following:

• Proven experience working as a DBA
• Experience of using infrastructure as code. Preferably Terraform
• Experience working with AWS RDS Postgres or GCP Cloud SQL databases
• Understanding of Postgres administration, monitoring, disaster recovery and performance tuning
• Self-motivated person able to drive change, take initiative and own their work
• Ability to communicate at all levels of the business to understand the users needs
• Built and deployed PostgreSQL clusters into production (would consider Oracle/MySQL and similar technologies)
• Knowledge of Postgres configuration settings
• A strong understanding of Postgres' vacuum/MVCC process
• Worked within high availability, scalable environments
• Ability to engage with all levels of the business to understand user needs
• Strong ability to solve complex technical issues

Interview Process

Interviewing is a two way process and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you! Our interviews are conversational and we want to get the best from you, so come with questions and be curious. In general you can expect the below, following a chat with one of our Talent Team:

• First Interview - 30 minutes
• Technical Interview - 90 minutes
• Final Interview - 45 minutes

Benefits

• 25 days holiday (plus public holidays)
• An extra day's holiday for your birthday, taken a week on either side of the day
• 16 hours paid volunteering time a year
• Part-time and/or flexible hours available for most roles
• Hybrid/remote working
• Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr & Mrs Smith and Peloton
• Generous family-friendly policies
• Enhanced sick pay
• Contributory pension scheme
• Varied social groups set up and run by our employees
• Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a cashback scheme, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, a birthday box and weekly free coffee
• Access to ‘salary sacrifice' benefits such as Cycle to Work scheme

About Us:

Starling is a leading digital bank on a mission to disrupt the banking industry. Since our launch in 2014, we've surpassed 2 million accounts, including over 350,000 business accounts. Our total deposits, meanwhile, have topped £5 billion and we have lent over £2bn over the same period. We're a fully licensed UK bank, and we have the culture and spirit of a fast-moving, disruptive technology company. We've won the Best British Bank award four years running, and now employ over 1500 people across our London, Southampton, Cardiff & Dublin offices.

Starling Bank is an equal opportunity employer, and we're proud of our ongoing efforts to foster diversity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Starling Bank are considered without regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

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