Database Reliability Engineer

placeMe IT Recruitment – Wellington Central, North Island A high-growth, marketplace processing high-volume transactions across New Zealand and the US is looking for an experienced Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE) / DBA to join their Wellington-based Data team. You will take ownership of the availability, performance, and security of a dual-engine database environment. Supporting mission-critical infrastructure, you will drive query optimisation, incident resolution, and automation efforts to keep platforms running smoothly at scale. Database Administration Administer, patch, upgrade, and maintain production and non-production SQL Server and AWS Aurora MySQL database environments. Performance Tuning & Optimisation Analyse execution plans, indexing strategies, locking/blocking, and queries to eliminate bottlenecks. Reliability & DR Manage backup, recovery, disaster recovery (DR), and high-availability (HA) solutions across cloud infrastructure. Incident Management & Root-Cause Analysis Support on-call rotation, troubleshoot complex database issues, and perform thorough root-cause analysis. Automation Build scripts and operational tooling to eliminate manual tasks and streamline deployments. Cross-Team Collaboration Partner with Agile software development teams to optimise data access patterns, application performance, and database design. What You'll BringMust-Haves 5+ years of experience as a DBA, DBRE, or Database Engineer managing high-volume, business-critical systems. Deep hands-on expertise in both Microsoft SQL Server and AWS Aurora MySQL . Advanced knowledge of database internals: indexing strategies, query optimisation, execution plan analysis, and concurrency management. Strong background in backup, restore, point-in-time recovery, and disaster recovery architectures. Solid hands-on proficiency with AWS database services and cloud infrastructure. Strong scripting and automation skills for database maintenance and operational tasks. Experience working alongside engineering teams within an Agile software delivery environment. Nice-to-Haves Experience with Snowflake administration. Hands-on experience with Terraform (Infrastructure as Code) and PowerShell . Familiarity with Change Data Capture (CDC), replication, and data integration patterns. Exposure to modern DevOps methodologies, microservices architectures, and CI/CDpipelines. Experience using enterprise monitoring platforms (e.g., CloudWatch, New Relic, or Datadog). What's on Offer Scale & Impact Work directly on high-throughput, cross-border transactional platforms used daily by thousands of businesses. Modern Stack Work alongside experienced software engineers in a modern AWS cloud environment. Flexibility Hybrid working arrangements based out of central Wellington, with a supportive and collaborative team culture. Ownership A supportive environment where you have real input into platform scalability and database architecture. We value potential and perspective over a perfect checklist. About placeMe IT placeMe IT is all about connecting the right candidate with the right job in IT. We promote diversity in the workplace and have a human-first approach, striving for meaningful connections. If you feel like you don't cover every base for this role, that's fine and natural; we encourage you to apply anyway. It's rare that somebody ticks every box! #J-18808-Ljbffr