At a Glance
- Tasks: Manage and optimise databases, ensuring reliability and performance as we grow.
- Company: Join Podfather, a dynamic tech company with a collaborative culture.
- Benefits: Enjoy remote work, competitive salary, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Be part of a passionate team and tackle real-world challenges.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on exciting projects in a fun, friendly environment.
- Qualifications: Experience with MariaDB/MySQL and some application development skills required.
The predicted salary is between 50000 - 65000 £ per year.
As a Senior Database Administrator, you’ll be the steward of the data layer that powers Podfather. Working closely with our Software Engineers, DevOps Engineers, and CTO, you will keep our databases reliable, performant, and well-designed as the business grows. If you love solving real-world problems, collaborating with a passionate team, and making a tangible impact every day, we want to hear from you.
Who is Podfather? With our team of around 60 people working remotely or at our Edinburgh head office, we believe that we can offer you something special here at Podfather. Our whole ethos is about creating a unique and rewarding experience for both our customers and our employees. When you work here, you will get involved with challenging projects within a fun and friendly environment. We are a medium-sized company, which means you get to be part of multiple projects, wear different hats, and truly see the difference your work makes. We develop and deliver industry-leading route optimisation and electronic proof of delivery (ePOD) technology to the logistics, construction, and field service sectors. We have some huge clients, and some tiny ones, and because we are growing fast, now is a great time to join our team.
At Podfather, we're guided by our core values: reliable, innovative, determined, collaborative, candid, and caring. You'll see these in action every day in how we work together, solve problems, and support our customers.
Where do you fit in? We recognise that impact in this role can be made in different ways, and that there are different ‘shapes’ of DBA. Depending on your background and interests, this role may lean more towards day-to-day operations and tuning, or more towards schema design and working alongside application developers.
In this role, you will be joining our Engineering & Infrastructure team. You will focus on:
- Database Operations: Take ownership of the day-to-day health of our MariaDB/MySQL estate, monitoring, backups, replication, capacity, upgrades, and patching, ensuring the platform stays reliable and recoverable.
- Schema Design & Evolution: Design new schemas and evolve existing ones to support new product features, working with engineers to ensure changes are safe to deploy, performant at scale, and easy to maintain over time.
- Performance & Scaling: Identify performance hotspots, tune queries/indexes, and help the team plan for growth as we scale to hundreds of thousands of users.
- Driving Change & Problem Solving: Identify, understand, and resolve critical database and data-integrity issues. You'll articulate database trade-offs to technical and non-technical stakeholders alike to drive high-leverage improvements.
- Information Security: Handle data securely throughout its lifecycle (encryption at rest/in transit), enforce the principle of least privilege, manage secure authentication, and handle patches/updates to protect the database estate.
Technical Expertise
- We are looking for a skilled practitioner who can lead database work to successful technical outcomes by factoring in technical debt, data modelling, stability, security, and business needs.
- Query Optimisation: Comfortable reading and optimising SQL using execution plans, indexes, and configuration tuning.
- Resilience & Observability: Responsible for backup strategies, replication, and disaster recovery procedures (including regular verification). You will fill database monitoring and alerting gaps to stop issues before they become incidents.
- Application Layer Collaboration: Work closely with engineers writing application code (primarily PHP at Podfather) to review how the application talks to the database, ensuring migrations are a routine process rather than a risky event.
- Incident Management: Take a leading role in debugging complex database issues, managing incidents, and collaborating with support teams to share known workarounds.
Required Skills
- MariaDB/MySQL experience.
- Some experience of growing databases to scale, to hundreds of thousands of users and beyond.
- Some application development experience; PHP would be preferred, but any experience working with a mature codebase would be fine.
Preferred Skills
- AWS experience preferred, but other cloud experience would also be helpful.
- Data warehousing experience.
- Experience of database scaling technologies such as sharding, pagination, replicas, caching, proxying.
- Experience of wider database technologies such as NoSQL, Graph, time-series DBs.
Ready to help us scale the data layer behind our expanding platform? If you are interested in joining the Podfather team, please email your CV and a cover letter explaining why you're a great fit for the role to jobs@podfather.com.
Senior Database Administrator employer: PODFather
Podfather is an exceptional employer that fosters a collaborative and innovative work culture, allowing Senior Database Administrators to thrive in a remote-friendly environment. With a strong emphasis on employee growth and development, team members are encouraged to influence data strategy while enjoying the flexibility of remote work. The company offers competitive benefits and a commitment to operational excellence, making it a rewarding place for those looking to make a meaningful impact in a high-growth setting.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Senior Database Administrator
✨Tap into Local Tech Meetups
Get yourself to local tech meetups or database management conferences. It's a really great way to meet industry professionals and potentially uncover unadvertised full-time roles. When chatting with people, mention your skills and interests in database management; you never know who might be looking for someone just like you!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Diving into open-source projects can not only sharpen your database skills but also get you noticed by employers. Many companies look for candidates who actively contribute to projects – it shows initiative and a real passion for the field. Plus, it's a perfect excuse to connect with other developers and expand your professional network.
✨Utilise Professional Bodies
Sign up for professional bodies related to database management, like the British Computer Society. They often host events and networking opportunities that can lead directly to job openings in the full-time market. Plus, it adds a nice touch to your professional profile!
✨Showcase Your Skills in a Public Portfolio
As you’re on the hunt for that full-time role, make sure to have a public portfolio that displays your best database projects. This can easily set you apart from the competition. And when you apply for roles, definitely mention it – it shows employers you mean business and are proud of your work!
We think you need these skills to ace Senior Database Administrator
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your database skills:When applying for a full-time role in database management, it’s super important to highlight your skills with specific database technologies like SQL, NoSQL, or any relevant data visualisation tools. We want to see how you've used these tools in real projects, so don't shy away from detailing your hands-on experience!
Tailor your CV for data:Make sure your CV is structured clearly, focusing on your previous experience in database management. Use specific metrics to demonstrate your impact, like how you improved data retrieval times or reduced errors. This isn't just about what you've done; it’s about what you’ve achieved with your skills!
Craft a compelling cover letter:In your cover letter, share what excites you about database management and how you can contribute to PODFather. Mention any relevant projects where you tackled challenges or implemented new solutions. Let us know why you want to join our team and how your passion aligns with our goals.
Document your projects:If you've worked on interesting database projects—maybe during your studies or in previous roles—be sure to include those in your application. If you can, link to a portfolio or GitHub repo where we can see examples of your work. Having a tangible showcase of your skills will really make your application stand out!
How to prepare for a job interview at PODFather
✨Brush Up on Database Tools
Make sure you're well-versed with popular database management systems like MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB. Incorporating real-world examples of how you've used these tools in past projects will show that you can put theory into practice, which is something PODFather will definitely appreciate.
✨Know Your SQL Inside Out
Get ready for some technical questions focused on SQL queries and database design. We should anticipate coding challenges where you might need to optimise queries or design a database schema on the spot. Practising these problems will build our confidence to impress in the interview.
✨Demonstrate Problem-Solving Skills
Besides just technical know-how, be prepared to answer scenario-based questions that test your critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Think about how you would approach data integrity issues or handle performance bottlenecks — PODFather will want to see your analytical side!
✨Show Your Collaboration Spirit
Since this is a full-time role, it's crucial to highlight how you've collaborated with cross-functional teams or contributed to team projects in the past. Emphasising our interpersonal skills will demonstrate that you’re not just a tech wizard, but also a team player who fits well with PODFather's culture.
