Staff Engineer - Database Infrastructure Reliability

Hybrid from Seattle is the preferred location but this role is open to fully remote candidates.

Redfin is revolutionizing the $75 billion real estate industry. We use data, software, and innovative design to put customers first at every step in the home-buying and selling process. We’ve got all the perks, but if what you value most is doing great work in a collaborative environment, join us.

The Production Engineering team at Redfin is currently seeking a Staff Database Engineer to lead the technical architecture of Redfin’s Database systems. They will work with the database team manager and other database engineers to develop and execute a strategy that supports system reliability and reduces team member load.. The Staff Database Engineer will also collaborate with senior engineers and leaders across Redfin and partner companies to solve large-scale problems. This role requires depth in design, collaboration with internal teams, a proactive approach to problem solving, and an ability to optimize and tune our databases for maximum efficiency.

Who You Are:

• You have extensive expertise and development skills in building, scaling, and supporting database technologies  (Postgres, Aurora  RDS,  event streaming, caching).

• You have formulated and led cloud database deliverables including provisioning, automation, scaling/performance, and replication.

• You understand the what/why/how of infrastructure protocols and architecture.

• You have experience with database performance tuning, troubleshooting databases, and performance issues.

• You understand and advocate best practices that promote reliability and reduce toil. 

• You show empathy for clients who rely on your systems, and seek to provide them a positive experience.

• You love to build tooling for common DBA processes and to automate!

Responsibilities:

• You will help lead the database strategy at Redfin, including architecture, management, and access patterns.

• You will lead complex technical discussions with a variety of audiences, including software and systems engineers and business leaders.

• You will support both large scale / high volume databases as well as more specialized AWS managed offerings.

• You will consult with other teams on system design and capacity planning.

• You will define & implement database architecture with a focus on reliability, throughput, scalability, and security.

• You will use and evangelize approved AI code generation tools to document, architect, and create code.

• You will build observability to proactively detect and prevent performance issues.

• You will perform DBA duties in non-production and production environments, such as upgrade, backup, recovery, and migration.

• You will work with the team to prioritize maintenance of Postgres instances including replication setup, parameter settings, and identification of appropriate instance types/sizes.

• You will plan and participate in high availability and disaster recovery planning/drills.

• You will use your systems knowledge to promote scaling and performance for every service at Redfin.

• You will participate in an on-call rotation for about one week per month..

Minimum Qualifications and Skills:

• 7+  years of cloud / AWS experience 

• 7+ years managing a cloud database instances (i.e. RDS, Aurora, or on EC2)

• 5+ years of PostgreSQL (or similar) database engineering and administration. 

• You have experience analyzing and troubleshooting large-scale distributed systems.

• You have experience monitoring infrastructure and database health.

• Deep knowledge of at least one AI code generation tool, such as GitHub CoPilot, Anthropic Claude Code, Cursor, or similar.

• You have experience with Terraform, CloudFormation, or other infrastructure as code tools.

• You understand and advocate for security best practices.

• You have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or similar, or equivalent work experience.

• Experienced mentor of other engineers with the ability to guide a team of engineers to identify and implement solutions to difficult problems.

• Experience in an Agile environment and production infrastructure on call.

• Understanding of continuous delivery and deployment.

• Experience with Linux administration and Linux scripting, including Python/Ruby script development.

Preferred Qualifications and Skills:

• AWS Certified Database - Specialty, or other Database-specific certifications

• Software or Systems Development experience.

• Expertise in RDS (Postgres) databases and Non-Relational databases such as (DynamoDB, Redis, Snowflake).

• Understanding of operating systems, storage and networking.

Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Colorado, New York City, New Jersey, Jersey City, California, D.C. and Washington candidates only:

The position may also be eligible for an annual bonus, incentives, and other employment-related benefits including, but not limited to, medical, dental, and vision benefits, 401K retirement plan, and paid time off. More information regarding these benefits and others can be found here. The information regarding compensation and other benefits included in this paragraph is only an estimate and is subject to revision from time to time as the Company, in its sole and exclusive discretion, deems appropriate. The Company may determine during its review of the proposed compensation and benefits provided for this position that the compensation and benefits for such position should be reduced. In no event will the Company reduce the compensation for the position to a level below the applicable jurisdictional minimum wage rate for the position.

Redfin is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workforce.

An inclusive culture is vital to Redfin's mission of making real estate better for people from all walks of life. We’re proud that Redfin is a place where different points of view and backgrounds are encouraged and respected. We constantly strive to build a company that reflects the world around us, based on our conviction that pursuing and developing talent of all types is the right way for a business to thrive over the long haul.

Redfin provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law. If you need accommodation in the application or recruitment process because of a disability or special need, please contact [email protected]

Redfin encourages individuals with criminal record histories to apply for employment and considers such individuals for employment consistent with the requirements of any applicable fair chance acts, including but not limited to the California, San Francisco and Los Angeles County Fair Chance Acts. Philadelphia applicants can access a copy of Philadelphia Fair Criminal Records Screening Standards ordinance poster here.

Redfin accepts applications on an ongoing basis.