Staff Database Reliability Engineer
DrataSalary not specified
Full Time
Senior (5 to 8 years), Expert & Leadership (9+ years)
Not SpecifiedCompensation
Senior (5 to 8 years)Experience Level
Full TimeJob Type
UnknownVisa
Technology, HR Tech, SaaSIndustries
Requirements
- 6–8+ years in database reliability, infrastructure, or backend engineering roles
- Deep expertise with Postgres internals, performance tuning, and optimization at scale (terabyte+ datasets)
- Strong understanding of replication, failover, and disaster recovery strategies
- Familiarity with Kubernetes and GCP environments (or equivalent cloud infra)
- Proficiency with Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform) and automation
- Solid troubleshooting experience across performance, scaling, and reliability incidents
- Hands-on coding skills in SQL and one modern programming language (Python, Go, or TypeScript)
- Collaborative, pragmatic, and calm under pressure — low ego, high ownership
Responsibilities
- Own & evolve Postgres infrastructure: design, optimize, and maintain databases handling terabytes of data
- Performance & tuning: manage indexing, vacuuming, partitioning, and connection pooling (e.g. PgBouncer)
- Scalability: plan and execute replication, sharding, and read replica strategies
- Observability: instrument monitoring, alerting, and metrics for database performance and reliability (e.g. query latency, I/O, locks)
- Incident response: lead database-related incidents, drive root cause analysis, and define preventive measures
- Reliability automation: use Terraform and scripting (Python, Go, or SQL) to automate database provisioning, backups, and maintenance
- Collaboration: partner with the platform and backend teams to build systems that are fast, observable, and fault-tolerant
- Operational excellence: define SLIs/SLOs/error budgets for data reliability
Skills
Key technologies and capabilities for this role
Questions & Answers
Common questions about this position
Is this role remote or onsite?
This is an onsite position based in Berlin.
What salary or compensation does this role offer?
This information is not specified in the job description.
What experience and skills are required for this position?
Candidates need 6–8+ years in database reliability, infrastructure, or backend engineering, deep expertise with Postgres internals, performance tuning, and optimization at scale for terabyte+ datasets, plus strong understanding of replication and failover.
What is the company culture like at Kombo?
Kombo offers high impact, high autonomy, greenfield opportunities to shape database practices, massive leverage across customers, and a collaborative environment working with platform team, product engineers, and CTO in a fast-growing 45+ person team.
What makes a strong candidate for this Senior Site Reliability Engineer role?
A strong candidate has 6–8+ years of relevant experience, deep Postgres expertise at scale, and hands-on skills in performance tuning, scalability strategies like replication and sharding, observability, incident response, and automation with tools like Terraform.
Kobo
Provides eReaders and digital reading apps
About Kobo
Rakuten Kobo Inc., a leading player in digital reading technology, provides a sophisticated ecosystem for seamless access to ebooks across various devices through its range of eReaders and Kobo App. This company is ideal for individuals passionate about transforming and enhancing the global reading experience, offering a highly collaborative environment that supports over 30 million users worldwide. Employees can thrive on opportunities to interact with cutting-edge technology while contributing to an expansive digital library that enriches both the accessibility and enjoyment of reading.
Toronto, CanadaHeadquarters
2009Year Founded
$395.9MTotal Funding
ACQUISITIONCompany Stage
Consumer Software, EducationIndustries
201-500Employees
Benefits
Flexible Work Hours
Remote Work Options
Health Insurance
Paid Sick Leave
401(k) Company Match
Commuter Benefits
Health Savings Account/Flexible Spending Account
Employee Discounts
Parental Leave
Professional Development Budget
Training Programs
Meal Benefits
Company Social Events
Risks
Increased competition from Amazon's Kindle Unlimited may attract Kobo's customers.
The rise of audiobook platforms like Audible may impact Kobo's e-book sales.
Free online reading platforms could reduce demand for Kobo's paid e-books.
Differentiation
Kobo supports multiple formats, including EPUB and PDF, unlike some competitors.
Kobo offers nearly 4 million titles in 68 languages, a diverse selection.
Kobo's platform synchronizes bookmarks across devices, enhancing user convenience.
Upsides
Audiobook integration could increase user engagement and revenue for Kobo.
Sustainability initiatives may attract environmentally conscious consumers to Kobo.
AI-powered personalization can enhance user experience and retention on Kobo's platform.
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