Senior Database Engineer
Location: Washington, DC Metro Area
Work Arrangement: Hybrid – 3 days/week onsite
Clearance: Ability to obtain a Public Trust
About the Role
We are seeking a Senior Database Developer / Database Engineer to support the development and modernization of an enterprise-scale federal data platform.
This is a hands-on database engineering role focused on PostgreSQL, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, AWS S3, database design, performance optimization, data modeling, and cloud-based data platforms. The ideal candidate will have strong database development and engineering experience rather than a traditional DBA/operations-only background.
You will work closely with application, cloud, data engineering, and architecture teams to design scalable database solutions, optimize performance, support data migrations, and build reliable cloud-native data platforms.
Key Responsibilities
- Design, develop, and maintain scalable database solutions using PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL.
- Develop and maintain logical and physical database models, schemas, tables, indexes, constraints, and storage structures.
- Perform database performance analysis, including query optimization, execution-plan analysis, indexing, partitioning, and workload tuning.
- Develop and maintain SQL, PL/pgSQL, stored procedures, functions, and database objects.
- Design and implement database schema changes and migration strategies across development, test, and production environments.
- Work with AWS S3 for data storage, ingestion, loading, and integration with database/data-platform workflows.
- Support cloud-native data architectures using AWS services such as Aurora, S3, DynamoDB, Glue, and related data services.
- Develop efficient data-loading and migration patterns for large datasets.
- Troubleshoot database performance, scalability, availability, and application/database integration issues.
- Analyze and improve database structures for high-volume transactional and analytical workloads.
- Collaborate with Data Engineers, Cloud Engineers, Software Developers, Solution Architects, and other technical stakeholders.
- Implement database security and access-control practices in accordance with federal requirements.
- Support schema evolution, database modernization, and migration from legacy platforms to AWS.
- Contribute to technical documentation, architecture decisions, and development standards.
Required Qualifications
- 7+ years of professional database development/engineering experience.
- Strong hands-on experience with PostgreSQL.
- Hands-on production experience with Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL.
- Strong experience with AWS, particularly Amazon S3.
- Experience with logical and physical database design and data modeling.
- Strong SQL development and database performance-tuning experience.
- Experience with indexing, partitioning, query optimization, and execution-plan analysis.
- Experience developing stored procedures, functions, and PL/pgSQL.
- Experience with database schema migrations and modernization.
- Experience working with cloud-based database platforms and data pipelines.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.
- Ability to obtain a Public Trust.