Staff Database Reliability Engineer, DBRE

Assured is on a mission to modernize insurance. Claims processing (i.e. should we pay this claim?), while often overlooked, is the foundation of the entire industry. It’s currently highly manual, involving phone calls, faxes, and gut instinct, costing tens of billions of dollars a year. We can do better. At Assured, we provide large insurers with the software solutions they need to win in a modern, technology-driven world. From self-service claim-filing software to backend fraud detection, we’re the engine that powers claims processing for some of the largest insurers in the world. The challenges we face are deep and diverse, from creating digital experiences that provide comfort and clarity to claimants at their most stressed and vulnerable to orchestrating large-scale ML-driven decision-making on billions of dollars of claims payments, life at Assured is dynamic, collaborative, and rewarding. We’re looking for a Staff Site Reliability Engineer (Database) to help shape and scale the backbone of our growing platform. You’ll lead the design, automation, and optimization of our database infrastructure, ensuring it’s reliable, secure, and built for scale. If you thrive in fast-moving environments and enjoy solving complex performance challenges, we’d love to talk. WHAT YOU’LL DO 🌎 Scale and optimize our database infrastructure for performance and reliability, starting with PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora. 👩‍💻 Design and implement robust monitoring, tuning, and scaling strategies to support our expanding SaaS platform. 🛠️ Build automation and tooling to streamline database management, focusing on consistency and repeatability. 👷 Drive optimization initiatives that enhance overall system health and uptime. 🤝 Evolve into broader SRE responsibilities beyond the database layer, shaping our infrastructure and reliability culture as we grow. WHAT YOU BRING 🦸‍♀️ 8+ years of experience in SRE, DevOps, or Database Administration roles. 🛠 Deep expertise in PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora, with hands-on experience managing production workloads at scale. 🤖 Proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript and Node.js, and comfort working close to application code. ⛓️ A strong background in highly available, scalable database design and operations. 🔓 Proven ability to optimize database performance, resolve complex issues, and enforce best practices. 🧑‍🔬 A solid engineering foundation and a passion for building reliable systems. BONUS POINTS ✨ Experience with Terraform or Terragrunt for infrastructure as code. 🔄 Familiarity with Prisma or other ORM frameworks. 🐳 Experience working with containerization (Docker/Kubernetes) and CI/CD pipelines. 📊 Exposure to Redshift or other data warehouse technologies.

Benefits

Compensation

Benefits

• Demonstrate mastery of cloud‑native data platforms: In your resume and interview, highlight hands‑on experience with AWS RDS, Aurora, and DynamoDB (or equivalent GCP/Azure services). Include concrete metrics—e.g., “Reduced read‑latency by 32% for a 15 TB PostgreSQL cluster on Aurora by redesigning the replica topology and tuning parameter groups.” Bring a short, one‑page architecture diagram of a multi‑region, fail‑over capable database you built, and be ready to discuss trade‑offs you considered for cost vs. availability.
• Showcase automated reliability pipelines: Prepare a GitHub repo (or private link) that contains a CI/CD workflow (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or CircleCI) which automatically runs chaos‑engineering tests, backup validation, and schema‑change safety checks on a sample database. Walk interviewers through how the pipeline detects regressions, triggers alerts, and integrates with PagerDuty/Slack—exactly the kind of end‑to‑end reliability automation Assured needs for its claim‑processing platform.
• Quantify incident‑response impact: Write a concise “post‑mortem” summary of a high‑severity outage you owned (real or simulated). Emphasize root‑cause analysis, the SLO/SLA you violated, the steps you took to restore service, and the preventative automation you added afterward. Bring the document (PDF or printed) and be prepared to discuss the cultural fit—Assured values data‑driven, transparent incident handling.
• Align with Assured’s ML‑driven decision engine: Prepare a short case study showing how you supported a data pipeline that feeds ML models (e.g., feature store, real‑time streaming via Kafka/Kinesis). Detail the database reliability challenges (schema evolution, data drift, latency) and the safeguards you implemented (schema versioning, CDC validation, automated rollbacks). This signals you understand the “large‑scale ML‑driven decision” context of the role.
• Negotiate remote‑work compensation with market data: Research the 2024 Remote DBRE salary benchmarks (e.g., levels.fyi, Hired). For a Staff‑level role, target a base of $180–$210 k plus 15–20% annual performance bonus and a $15–$25 k remote‑work stipend. Bring a one‑page comparison chart to the offer discussion, and be ready to justify the range with your specific achievements (e.g., cost savings, reliability improvements) that directly translate to Assured’s bottom line.