Staff Platform Engineer (Database Services)

Postgres, MySQL
UNITED STATES
October 25, 2026
Full Time
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Job Description

Company: UKG
Location: United States
Workplace Type: Hybrid
Employment Type: Full-time
Pay / Compensation: $129,500 – $186,100

About the Role

UKG is seeking a Staff Platform Engineer to help design, automate, operate, and continuously improve critical database services across on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud environments. Our team manages and supports multiple database and messaging platforms, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, and RabbitMQ.

This role is ideal for an engineer who enjoys building reliable platforms, automating operational processes, troubleshooting complex production issues, and enabling development teams to consume database services through self-service workflows.

What You’ll Do / Key Responsibilities

  • Platform Architecture & Operations: Design, build, and operate infrastructure platforms that deliver critical database services at scale across hybrid environments, including on-premises infrastructure, OpenStack, Kubernetes, and public cloud platforms.
  • Infrastructure Automation: Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Terragrunt for provisioning, configuration, upgrades, migrations, and lifecycle management.
  • Database Lifecycle Management: Support the full lifecycle of database services, from provisioning and configuration through maintenance, scaling, migration, decommissioning, backup processes, and service upgrades.
  • Troubleshooting & Incident Response: Troubleshoot service failures, provisioning issues, replication problems, performance degradation, capacity constraints, and connectivity issues; participate in on-call rotation resolving P1/P2 production incidents.
  • Container & CI/CD Orchestration: Develop and manage Kubernetes deployments, Helm charts, operators, and platform integrations; improve CI/CD and GitOps workflows using GitHub Actions.
  • Observability & Reliability: Improve monitoring, alerting, logging, tracing, and operational visibility using Prometheus and Grafana, while developing runbooks and disaster recovery capabilities.
  • Technical Leadership: Review designs and code, establish engineering standards, and mentor engineers across platform and database domains.

Requirements & Qualifications

  • 7+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, DevOps, SRE, or infrastructure engineering.
  • Production Operations: Strong hands-on experience supporting production environments, mission-critical services, on-call incident response, and root-cause analysis.
  • Linux & Systems Administration: Deep knowledge of Linux administration, troubleshooting, system performance tuning, networking fundamentals, and security practices.
  • Kubernetes & Containers: Strong experience with Kubernetes and containerized production workloads.
  • Infrastructure as Code: Proven expertise developing and maintaining IaC using Terraform and Terragrunt.
  • Automation & Scripting: Strong programming or scripting skills in languages such as Python, Bash, Go, or similar modern languages.
  • Private/Public Cloud Experience: Production experience with OpenStack or comparable private-cloud and infrastructure platforms.
  • Observability: Experience configuring and utilizing monitoring, logging, and alerting tools including Prometheus and Grafana.

Preferred / Bonus Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience).
  • Database Administration Experience: Background managing, backing up, optimizing, and replicating open-source database platforms such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, or Redis.
  • Cloud Database Services: Hands-on experience with managed database platforms such as AWS RDS, GCP Cloud SQL, or MongoDB Atlas.
  • Certifications: Relevant certifications in PostgreSQL, MySQL, Linux, Kubernetes, Terraform, or cloud platforms.
  • GitOps & Security: Familiarity with GitOps workflows, SRE principles, and certificate-management systems (cert-manager, ACME, PKI).

Benefits & Perks

  • Comprehensive Pay & Bonus: Base pay range of $129,500 to $186,100 plus eligibility for a performance-based bonus plan and restricted stock unit (RSU) awards.
  • Comprehensive Healthcare: Medical, dental, and vision insurance options.
  • Work-Life Flexibility: Hybrid work arrangements and generous paid time off.
  • Retirement & Wealth: 401(k) program with company matching.

UKG is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, disability, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, and other legally protected categories.

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