Database Reliability Engineer

About the role

We are looking for a Database Reliability Engineer with a passion for Database Engineering and maintaining critical services to join Wise’s Database Reliability Engineering (DBRE) team.

The DBRE team are the owners and maintainers of the Wise database engine, which underpins almost every Wise user experience. Our mission is to superpower the Wise revolution with reliable, scalable and performant databases to store and recall data, and provide solutions and best practices within our organisation.

DBREs work in very tight collaboration with the Database Platform team creating a blend of database engineering, dev-ops and software developers that apply sound engineering principles, operational discipline and mature software development and automation, specialising in databases (MariaDB, MongoDB, PostgreSQL and Redis in particular). In that capacity, DBREs bring database expertise to the Database Engineering group as well as to our engineering teams.

As an international Financial Services company, we also have the responsibility to keep our customers’ money and data safe. The DBRE team plays a critical role in this - by helping our Product Engineers work with Databases safely and ensure that best practices are always applied. To do this we work closely with the other teams building out the Data Platform, and with the wider Platform organisation to build out the required guardrails.

Who we are looking for

Here's what we're looking for in a software engineer working in the Database Reliability Engineering team, but don't be intimidated – if you're passionate about learning and interested in what we do, we'd love to hear from you.

We value a balance between robust engineering skills and a good understanding of database technologies. Ideally, you'll have experience in both areas, but if you’re strong in one and eager to learn the other, you could be a great fit too.

Professional Experience:

• Experience working with relational databases like MariaDB/MySQL or PostgreSQL in production environments.
• Familiarity with managing databases in high-demand, 24/7 environments.

Database Skills:

• Strong knowledge of SQL and PL/pgSQL—debugging and optimization skills are a big plus.
• Understanding of database internals and performance tuning for MariaDB/MySQL or PostgreSQL.
• Knowledge of backup and recovery processes.

Engineering Skills:

• Experience designing, implementing, and testing solutions following software engineering principles.
• Programming skills in an object-oriented language (Python or Go is a plus).
• Experience with infrastructure automation and configuration management tools such as Chef, Ansible, Puppet, or Terraform.

Cloud Experience:

• Familiarity with cloud technologies, preferably AWS (experience with Aurora and other AWS managed services is beneficial).

Nice to have:

• Have experience working in a distributed production environment.
• Experience with MongoDB (or any other NoSQL technologies)
• Experience in building self-service tooling that helps engineers, analysts or data scientists do their job more efficiently
• Knowledge/interest in payment platforms, foreign exchange & highly complex systems

What you get in return

• Starting salary: £60,000 - £80,000 + RSUs
• The freedom to have real impact
• The opportunity to inspire teams across Wise
• Flexible working – whether it’s working from home, school plays or life admin we get that flexibility is essential and you’re trusted to do the right thing and be responsible
• Paid annual holiday, sick days, parental leave and other leave opportunities
• 6 weeks of paid sabbatical after 4 years at Wise on top of annual leave
• A fun work environment with social activities and events

Find out more about our benefits in our London office.