Senior Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE)

Job Description

Company: Okta
Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA / California (other) / Colorado / Illinois (Chicago) / New York / Washington
Workplace Type: Hybrid
Employment Type: Permanent
Pay / Compensation: $160,000 – $220,000 USD (San Francisco Bay Area); $143,000 – $196,000 USD (CA non-SF Bay Area, CO, IL, NY, WA)

About the Role

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence. This is an opportunity to do career-defining work.

We are looking for a highly skilled Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE) with deep expertise in PostgreSQL at scale and solid experience with MySQL. In this role, you will design, operationalize, and optimize the data persistence layer that powers our large-scale, mission-critical systems. You will work closely with SRE, Platform, and Engineering teams to ensure performance, reliability, automation, and operational excellence across our database environment.

This is a hands-on engineering role focused on building resilient data infrastructure, not just administering it.

What You’ll Do / Key Responsibilities

Architecture, Reliability & Performance

• Design, implement, and operate highly available PostgreSQL clusters (physical replication, logical replication, sharding/partitioning, failover automation).
• Optimize query performance, indexing strategies, schema design, and storage engines.
• Perform capacity planning, growth forecasting, and workload modeling.
• Own high-availability strategies including automatic failover, multi-AZ/multi-region setups, and disaster recovery.

Automation & Tooling

• Develop automation for any and all tasks including but not limited to: provisioning, configuration, backups, failovers, vacuum tuning, and schema management using tools such as Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes Operators, or custom tooling.
• Build monitoring, alerting, and self-healing systems for PostgreSQL and MySQL.

Operations & Incident Response

• Lead response during database incidents—performance regressions, replication lag, deadlocks, bloat issues, storage failures, etc.
• Conduct root-cause analysis and implement permanent fixes.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with software engineers to review SQL, optimize schemas, and ensure efficient use of PostgreSQL features.
• Provide guidance on database-related design patterns, migrations, version upgrades, and best practices.

Requirements & Qualifications

• 4+ years of hands-on PostgreSQL experience in high-volume, distributed, or large-scale production environments.
• Strong knowledge of PostgreSQL internals (WAL, MVCC, bloat/vacuum tuning, query planner, indexing, logical replication).
• Production experience with MySQL (InnoDB internals, replication, performance tuning).
• Advanced SQL and strong understanding of schema design and query optimization.
• Experience with Linux systems, networking fundamentals, and systems troubleshooting.
• Experience building automation with Go or Python.
• Production experience with monitoring tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, PMM, pg_stat_statements, etc.).
• Hands-on experience with cloud environments (AWS or GCP).
• Work Authorization Requirement: This position requires the ability to access federal environments and/or have access to protected federal data. As a condition of employment for this position, the successful candidate must be able to submit documentation establishing U.S. Person status (e.g., a U.S. Citizen, National, Lawful Permanent Resident, Refugee, or Asylee. 22 CFR 120.15) upon hire.
• Onboarding Requirement: Requires in-person onboarding and travel to our San Francisco, CA HQ office or our Chicago office during the first week of employment.

Preferred / Bonus Qualifications

• Experience with PgBouncer, HAProxy, or other connection-pooling/load-balancing layers.
• Exposure to event streaming (Kafka, Debezium) and change data capture.
• Experience supporting 24/7 production environments with on-call rotation.
• Contributions to the open-source PostgreSQL ecosystem.

Benefits & Perks

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Flexible spending account (FSA)
• Paid leave, including PTO and parental leave
• Equity eligibility (where applicable) and performance bonus programs
• Immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact
• Global talent community across 20+ offices worldwide focused on connection, well-being, social impact, and career development

Additional Compensation Information

Your actual base salary will depend on factors such as your skills, qualifications, experience, and work location. To learn more about our Total Rewards program please visit: https://rewards.okta.com/us.