Role: Senior PostgreSQL Database Administrator / Database Engineer Location: Chicago, IL - Hybrid About the Role As a Senior PostgreSQL Database Administrator / Database Engineer, you'll own the health, performance, and durability of high-throughput Postgres clusters running both on bare metal / on-prem VMs and on Amazon RDS. This is a hands-on role: you will read query plans, tune indexes, run failover drills, review application code, and write high-quality documentation.
This is not a ticket-queue DBA position. You will work inside the development process - reviewing migrations before they ship, pairing with application teams on data access patterns, assisting with performance troubleshooting, and contributing to incident resolution and process improvement.
What You'll Do: - Own performance for high-volume OLTP Postgres workloads: query plan analysis, index strategy, statistics and autovacuum tuning, connection pooling, partitioning, and schema design review.
- Design, deploy, and operate highly available clusters using Patroni, including replication topology, failover and switchover procedures, and regular testing.
- Own the backup and recovery program end to end - backup tooling, retention, PITR, and, most importantly, routine restore verification with documented RTO/RPO.
- Manage Postgres in both on-prem and Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL environments, including the operational differences between them (parameter groups, extension availability, failover behavior, upgrade paths).
- Plan and execute major-version upgrades and large migrations with minimal downtime.
- Review application code and database migrations written in Ruby (Rails/ActiveRecord) and Java (JDBC), catching N+1 queries, unsafe DDL, missing indexes, and lock-taking migrations before they reach production.
- Build and maintain observability for the database tier: metrics, slow query capture, lock and wait-event analysis, and capacity forecasting.
- Automate routine operations. Manual runbooks are a starting point, not a destination.
- Participate in an on-call rotation: lead incident response, write postmortems, and file follow-up tickets to prevent recurrence.
- Write and maintain internal documentation: runbooks, architecture decision records, upgrade playbooks, and developer-facing guidance on using Postgres well.
- Assist in sizing and future scaling of on-prem server hardware.
- Participate in disaster recovery planning and exercises.
Who You Are: - You have deep PostgreSQL expertise with the query planner - you can read EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS) output and explain why the planner chose a plan, not just that it was slow.
- You have hands-on indexing strategy experience across B-tree, GIN, GiST, BRIN, partial, expression, and covering indexes, including the write-amplification cost of each.
- You understand replication - physical and logical replication, replication slots, lag diagnosis, and the failure modes of each.
- You must have production experience with Patroni-managed clusters, including having handled a real failover.
- You must have proven ownership of a backup and restore program (pgBackRest, Barman) - including having performed a production restore under pressure.
- You have experience operating Postgres at meaningful scale in both self-managed (on-prem/VM/bare metal) and managed RDS environments.
- You must have strong Linux fundamentals: filesystem and I/O behavior, memory and hugepages, systemd, networking, and performance tooling.
- You have a software development background: creating, reviewing, and merging pull requests as part of a mandatory peer review process, and writing runbooks and design documentation.
- You have working proficiency in Ruby and Java, with enough Python literacy to read, review, and modify it confidently.
- You must be an excellent written communicator. Clear incident summaries, review comments, and design proposals are a core part of this job, not an afterthought.
- You have excellent documentation practice - a demonstrated habit of leaving systems better documented than you found them.
Preferred Qualifications: - Experience with connection poolers (PgBouncer) at scale.
- Infrastructure-as-code and configuration management (Terraform, Ansible, SaltStack, Puppet, etc.).
- Kubernetes-hosted Postgres operators.
- Active-active multi-site architecture.
- Experience with logical replication-based zero-downtime migrations.
- Contributions to Postgres or its ecosystem tooling.
- Familiarity with our internal tooling, including [gascan].
Company Perks + Benefits: - Performance Bonuses
- Stock Purchase Options
- Medical/Vision/Dental Benefits
- 401k Plan
- 20 Paid Vacation Days (plus an additional paid vacation day the month of your birthday!)
- 10 Paid Sick Days
- Gym Membership Reimbursement
- Commuter Benefits
- Pet Insurance
- Wellness & Mental Health Programs
- Charitable Donation Matching
- Two Paid Volunteer Days Off
- Daily catered lunch when in the office
- Full kitchen with snacks and beverages
- In-building gym
- Shuttle to/from Metra
Base Salary Range: $150,000-$180,000 The actual salary offered will be based on the candidate's level of experience and qualifications.
Discretionary Performance Bonus: 8-12% of base salary based on individual and company performance.
Location: Our office is in the West Loop - Chicago's growing center of tech, great cuisine, and high-end bars.
tastytrade | tastylive | tastyfx 1330 W Fulton Market, Chicago, IL 60607
*Don't meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they have every single qualification. Our team is dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so if you're excited about this role, but your experience doesn't align perfectly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles!
