Why This Role MattersThe Senior Database Engineer at Bluestaq owns the data systems that move and protect information behind national security decisions - the schemas, pipelines, and datastores our enterprise platform runs on. This is not a ticket-closing seat. You are the go-to engineer for a data domain: you design the schemas, tune the queries that are actually slow, keep the pipelines healthy, and lead the medium-sized data work from requirements through production. You operate independently, call out risk before it becomes an outage, and set the bar for the engineers around you.
What You Own - Own sets of tables, schemas, and data flows end-to-end within a larger product or program - including their data quality, performance, and operability over time.
- Design robust relational schemas and data models with sound normalization and denormalization tradeoffs, DDL, and extensive SQL.
- Work across SQL and NoSQL datastores (MongoDB, Postgres/RDS, Amazon Athena) following best practices, and represent practical DB constraints in data modeling discussions.
- Lead the design and delivery of medium-sized data features - new domains, new ingest, or significant schema changes.
- Build moderately complex ETL/ingest pipelines with incremental loads, error handling, and validation.
- Investigate and fix non-trivial performance problems - bad query plans, missing indexes, partitioning, table bloat - and tune queries, indexes, and configurations for real workloads.
- Apply database-level security controls - row-level security (e.g., Postgres RLS), roles and permissions, and auditing patterns - to protect sensitive data.
- Plan and execute database upgrades, patches, and migrations with minimal disruption to dependent systems.
- Serve as the escalation point for Associate and mid-level engineers on data correctness and performance, and mentor through code review and by explaining design choices.
- Partner with Software Engineering, Data Modeling, Systems, and Cyber to align data design, performance, and access patterns with mission needs.
- Keep database and process documentation current - schema and data-flow diagrams, runbooks, and how-to guides for operating and querying key datasets.
What You Bring Required Education & Experience
- High School Diploma/GED and 8+ years of relevant experience, OR
- Associate degree in a related field and 6+ years of relevant experience, OR
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field and 4+ years of relevant experience, OR
- Master's degree in a related field and 2+ years of relevant experience
Must-Haves
- Relational database mastery - production experience designing, tuning, and operating one or more of Postgres, MySQL, Oracle, or SQL Server.
- NoSQL / large-scale stores - hands-on work with MongoDB, Athena, or equivalent, and sound judgment on when to use them.
- Schema and data modeling - designing normalized and denormalized structures that hold up under real-world query and storage conditions.
- Performance engineering - diagnosing bad plans and bottlenecks, and applying indexing, partitioning, and query rewrites that stick.
- ETL / ingest pipelines - building moderately complex loads with incremental processing, error handling, and validation.
- Database security - row-level security, roles and permissions, and auditing patterns applied in production.
- Backup, recovery, and disaster recovery - you know the plan and have exercised it.
- Linux environments and scripting / automation - PowerShell, Bash, Python, and SQL.
- SQL depth - Common Table Expressions, dynamic SQL, and the ability to reason about complex queries.
- Independent delivery - you scope the work, choose the approach, surface risk, and drive it from design through rollout without being managed through it.
- Mentorship and communication - you raise the bar through code review and clear technical writing for peers, leadership, and cross-functional teams.
- Ownership mentality - you follow through, document your work, check downstream impact, and know when to persevere vs. ask for help.
Nice-to-Haves
- Relevant certifications (e.g., DBA certifications).
- Cloud platforms - AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
- Containerization - Docker, Kubernetes.
- Schema automation / migration tooling - Liquibase, Flyway.
- Monitoring and observability - Splunk or equivalent.
- DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines.
Salary Range (US)
$115,000-$140,000 USD
Clearance Requirement: This position may require an active TS/SCI Clearance. Current clearance holders are strongly encouraged to apply. If you don't currently hold one, Bluestaq will sponsor eligible candidates through the clearance process based on program needs.
Relocation: Relocation assistance is available for full-time positions.
