Principal Database Engineer

At Early Warning, we’ve powered and protected the U.S. financial system for over thirty years with cutting-edge solutions like Zelle®, Paze℠, and so much more. As a trusted name in payments, we partner with thousands of institutions to increase access to financial services and protect transactions for hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses.

Positions located in Scottsdale, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York follow a hybrid work model to allow for a more collaborative working environment.

Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States, for any employer, at the date of hire. This position is ineligible for employment Visa sponsorship.

For more than three decades, bank-owned Early Warning has provided network intelligence that helps financial institutions get money moving. We are the owners and operators of the Zelle Network® - but we do so much more. Early Warning is the Trusted Custodian® of the National Shared Database (SM) Resource on which more than 2,500 financial institutions and other companies rely on as a source of intelligence for managing risk.
This is all made possible by hard-working individuals who “Own the Outcome” and have a “Win as One” mentality. They manage a vast variety of large and complex database systems that serve as the backbone of well-known and highly utilized applications including but not limited to Paze and Zelle.
If you want to be part of this incredible engine of innovation, are hungry for large scale challenges, and crave opportunities to grow professionally within the fintech sector, then we’d love to talk to you!

Overall Purpose

A seasoned engineer with advanced technical skills and experience in multiple database systems. Implements the technical strategy; ensuring that database administration priorities are being successfully executed in regards to security, risk management, scalability, and reliability.

Essential Functions

• Leads critical incidents from inception through incident resolution as well as throughout the root cause analysis process.

• Develops technical roadmap and strategy in collaboration with leadership, including defining goals and KPIs. Implements the technical strategy, including direction, planning and execution of database administration priorities. Monitors teams’ progress and reports out challenges and impact to priorities.

• Documents and onboards new technology and provides knowledge transfer to others

• Using expert level experience, supports the company’s commitment to risk management by protecting the integrity and confidentiality of systems and their data; aligns enterprise and department-level policies, procedures, and controls by attesting to verbiage, compliance, and evidence

• Forward thinking in upgrade paths, compute and storage capacity expansion, and database hardening and patching

• Transforms business requirements into technical specifications that demonstrate effective data design and system architecture to meet SLAs (RTOs and RPOs)

• Key contributor in implementing proactive monitoring/alerting and automatic corrective actions

• Takes ownership for creating technical product design and architecture including but not limited to: system installation, configuration, and performance management

• Collaborates and builds cross functional influence and motivates others; serves as internal catalyst for progressive, strategic, and successful change management

• Mentor, coach, and guide other Database Engineers; monitors team efforts and provides feedback to leadership for continuous improvement.

• Works closely with customers and stakeholders to understand requirements and creates a partnership for Early Warning where database services are reliable, performant, and cost-effective

• The above job description is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of duties and standards of the position. Incumbents will follow instructions and perform other related duties as assigned by their supervisor

Minimum Qualifications

• Education and/ or experience typically obtained through completion of a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Science Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Electrical Engineering, or related field

• A minimum of 15 years of data management, architecture, and systems experience for large-scale implementations

• Subject Matter Expert in MS SQL Server and Oracle in the areas of clustering, replication, partitioning, encryption, and high availability/disaster recovery configurations from a design, implementation, and support standpoint. Must be willing to be cross-trained and lead in other RDBMS technologies in these areas.

• Hands on experience designing and deploying secure database systems for high performance, resiliency, availability, and reliability

• Extensive experience in identifying and leading tuning and performance improvements for database systems within and across the technology stack.

• RDBMS domain expertise. Knowledge of Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), development methodologies (Agile, Scrum, Lean), and DevOps practices.

• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills with the ability to present any data management concept to stakeholders in all levels of the business

• Ability to work outside normal business hours and be part of a 24x7 on-call rotation

• Background or drug screen

Preferred Qualifications

• M.S or Ph.D. in Information Systems or another related field

• Cloud Certification in the area for database specialization

• Extensive SQL Server and Oracle DBA experience

• SQL Server certification

• Additional experience with mainstream on-premise and cloud-based database technologies such as AWS Aurora, RDS, EC2, Azure, and OCI

• Knowledge of NoSQL and Big Data Analytics systems and use-cases such as Redshift, HBASE, and Aerospike

• Experience with Monitoring and Alerting Systems such as AppDynamics, Zabbix, PagerDuty, OEM, Idera, and CloudWatch

• FinTech experience is highly beneficial

Physical Requirements

Working conditions consist of a normal office environment. Work is primarily sedentary and requires extensive use of a computer and involves sitting for periods of approximately four hours. Work may require occasional standing, walking, kneeling and reaching. Must be able to lift 10 pounds occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently. Requires visual acuity and dexterity to view, prepare, and manipulate documents and office equipment including personal computers. Requires the ability to communicate with internal and/or external customers.

Employee must be able to perform essential functions and physical requirements of position with or without reasonable accommodation.

The pay scale for this position in:

Phoenix, AZ in USD per year is: $150,000 - $170,000.

San Francisco, CA in USD per year is: $160,000 - $180,000.

Additionally, candidates are eligible for a discretionary bonus, and benefits.

This pay scale is subject to change and is not necessarily reflective of actual compensation that may be earned, nor a promise of any specific pay for any specific candidate, which is always dependent on legitimate factors considered at the time of job offer. Early Warning Services takes into consideration a variety of factors when determining a competitive salary offer, including, but not limited to, the job scope, market rates and geographic location of a position, candidate’s education, experience, training, and specialized skills or certification(s) in relation to the job requirements and compared with internal equity (peers). The business actively supports and reviews wage equity to ensure that pay decisions are not based on gender, race, national origin, or any other protected classes.

Some of the Ways We Prioritize Your Health and Happiness 

•  Healthcare Coverage – Competitive medical (PPO/HDHP), dental, and vision plans as well as company contributions to your Health Savings Account (HSA) or pre-tax savings through flexible spending accounts (FSA) for commuting, health & dependent care expenses.

• 401(k) Retirement Plan – Featuring a 100% Company Safe Harbor Match on your first 6% deferral immediately upon eligibility.

• Paid Time Off – Unlimited Time Off for Exempt (salaried) employees, as well as generous PTO for Non-Exempt (hourly) employees, plus 11 paid company holidays and a paid volunteer day.

• 12 weeks of Paid Parental Leave

• Maven Family Planning – provides support through your Parenting journey including egg freezing, fertility, adoption, surrogacy, pregnancy, postpartum, early pediatrics, and returning to work.

And SO much more! We continue to enhance our program, so be sure to check our Benefits page here for the latest. Our team can share more during the interview process!

Early Warning Services, LLC (“Early Warning”) considers for employment, hires, retains and promotes qualified candidates on the basis of ability, potential, and valid qualifications without regard to race, religious creed, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, protected veteran or disability status or any factor prohibited by law, and as such affirms in policy and practice to support and promote equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and municipal laws. The company also prohibits discrimination on other bases such as medical condition, marital status or any other factor that is irrelevant to the performance of our employees. 

Early Warning Services LLC is a proud participant in E-Verify, a federal program to help ensure a legal and authorized workforce. As part of our hiring process, we electronically verify the employment eligibility of all new hires through E-Verify. For more information on your rights and responsibilities under E-Verify please visit Home | E-Verify.