Position Title: Senior Database Engineer - GSE (Ground Support Engineer)
Requisition ID: 1809
Position Location: Sterling, Virginia
Position Reports To: Director of Embedded Software Engineering & GSE
Supervises Others: No
Position SummaryThe Senior Database Engineer designs, develops, and maintains database systems that support production automation, engineering operations, manufacturing workflows, hardware traceability, test automation, and internal business processes. This role works closely with software, test, production, quality, and engineering teams to build reliable data infrastructure that enables scalable delivery of aerospace electronics products.
The ideal candidate combines strong database engineering fundamentals with practical software development skills and an understanding of automation-driven engineering environments.
Duties and Responsibilities- Design, develop, deploy, and maintain databases supporting production automation, manufacturing workflows, engineering operations, test systems, and product traceability.
- Develop database schemas, data models, relationships, indexing strategies, and data access architectures for internal engineering and production systems.
- Support internal software tools that interface with production and engineering databases.
- Build and maintain APIs, services, or backend integrations that connect automation tools, engineering applications, production systems, and reporting workflows.
- Support collection, storage, retrieval, and analysis of manufacturing, test, telemetry, traceability, and product lifecycle data.
- Optimize database performance, reliability, backup strategies, availability, and long-term maintainability.
- Support data integrity, access control, configuration management, and operational continuity.
- Troubleshoot issues involving application/database interactions, schema design, performance bottlenecks, connectivity, and automation workflows.
- Partner with engineering, production, quality, and software teams to define scalable data workflows and process automation solutions.
- Support migration or integration with enterprise systems where applicable.
- Maintain technical documentation for schemas, interfaces, architecture, deployment, backup, and operational procedures.
- Support off-site work or travel, as needed.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Required Qualifications- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
- Minimum of 6 years of experience designing, developing, and maintaining production or engineering database systems.
- Strong experience with relational database systems such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, or similar platforms.
- Experience with schema design, indexing, normalization, query optimization, backup/recovery, and database performance tuning.
- Experience developing software or backend services that interact with database systems.
- Experience troubleshooting database-backed applications in operational environments.
- Strong understanding of data integrity, transactional systems, access control, and reliability practices.
- Strong communication, documentation, and problem-solving skills.
Preferred Qualifications- Experience supporting manufacturing, test automation, engineering operations, production systems, or traceability workflows.
- Experience developing APIs, backend applications, automation integrations, or internal engineering software.
- Familiarity with Python, C#, Java, JavaScript, PowerShell, or similar development languages.
- Experience with web applications, dashboards, reporting tools, or internal automation systems.
- Experience in aerospace, defense, electronics manufacturing, or high-reliability technical environments.
- Familiarity with ERP, PLM, MES, quality systems, or engineering data workflows.
- Experience with cloud-hosted or hybrid database deployments.
- Strong systems thinking and ability to work across software, production, and engineering domains.
Pay InformationFull-Time Salary Range: $99,000 - $185,000
Please Note: Actual compensation offered will be determined based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, education, certifications, internal equity, business considerations, and geographic location where applicable.
Benefits Hired applicants may be eligible for benefits including but not limited to:
- Health benefits
- Medical
- Dental
- Vision
- Basic life with AD&D
- Short term disability
- Long term disability
- Ancillary (Voluntary life with AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital, and pet)
- Spending accounts (HSA, FSA, and DCFSA)
- Paid time off
- Holidays
- 401(k) (including company match)
- Tuition reimbursement
- Leaves (Parental, maternity, and military)
- Annual discretionary bonus (for eligible roles)
Trident Systems reserves the right to change or assign other duties to this position.
