Senior Lead Site Reliability Engineer, Database

This role owns the reliability, scalability, and operational excellence of the database infrastructure behind one of the most demanding real-time platforms in sports betting and gaming. The position combines deep database expertise with software engineering and infrastructure automation to build resilient, self-healing systems and improve platform performance. The engineer works across cloud and on-premises database environments and partners closely with application engineering teams and engineers across the wider organisation.

• Drive the technical roadmap for database reliability across PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, ScyllaDB, Aerospike, and managed cloud services, shaping architecture for high availability, replication, partitioning, storage, and connection management.
• Design and build automation-first database platforms, developing Kubernetes operators, infrastructure as code, GitOps workflows, and production-quality tooling in Go or Python to automate provisioning, failover, backups, schema migrations, and lifecycle management.
• Lead operational excellence by defining service level objectives, monitoring database health, capacity, and performance, eliminating recurring reliability issues, validating backup and recovery processes, and leading critical production incidents through resolution and continuous improvement.
• Optimise database performance and cost across cloud and on-premises environments through capacity planning, resource efficiency, storage optimisation, workload consolidation, and performance tuning for large-scale systems.
• Partner closely with application engineering teams to establish safe database practices, including schema reviews, migration strategies, query optimisation, connection management, and zero-downtime deployment processes.
• Leverage AI to improve engineering productivity and database operations through intelligent observability, anomaly detection, root cause analysis, documentation, predictive insights, and evaluation of AI-generated code to ensure reliability and security.
• Mentor engineers across the organisation by sharing best practices, leading design and code reviews, influencing technical direction, supporting hiring efforts, and raising the overall maturity of database reliability engineering.

• At least 6 years of experience in Database Reliability Engineering, Database Platform Engineering, or Site Reliability Engineering with a strong database focus, including technical leadership experience delivering complex database infrastructure projects at scale.
• Deep expertise in at least one major relational database, preferably PostgreSQL, along with operational experience supporting technologies such as MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, ScyllaDB, Aerospike, Aurora, Cloud SQL, and other managed cloud database services.
• Strong experience building and operating stateful workloads on Kubernetes using technologies such as StatefulSets, Persistent Volumes, database operators, Terraform, Pulumi, FluxCD, ArgoCD, GKE, and EKS.
• Hands-on software development experience using Go or Python to create automation, platform tooling, Kubernetes controllers, APIs, and infrastructure that reduces manual effort and improves engineering efficiency.
• A data-driven, automation-first mindset with proven experience improving reliability through observability, monitoring, service level objectives, capacity planning, performance optimisation, and self-service engineering solutions.
• Practical experience using AI tools such as Claude, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, MCP, or similar technologies to improve design, coding, documentation, troubleshooting, and operational workflows while applying sound engineering judgment to validate AI-generated outputs.
• Excellent leadership and communication skills with a track record of mentoring engineers, influencing architectural decisions, collaborating across engineering teams, producing clear technical documentation, and driving continuous improvement in highly available production environments.

• US base salary range for this full-time position: USD 168,000.00 – USD 210,000.00 per year, plus bonus, equity, and benefits as applicable. Ranges are determined by role, level, and location, and reflect new hire pay rates across all US locations; individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

• Bonus, equity, and benefits are provided as applicable.

DraftKings is a publicly traded (NASDAQ: DKNG) technology company headquartered in Boston, where AI is becoming an integral part of both the present and the future, powering how work gets done, guiding smarter decisions, and sparking bold ideas. Its teams are energised by innovation and readily embrace emerging technology, shaping the future rather than waiting for it to arrive. As a regulated gaming company, DraftKings may require employees to obtain a gaming licence issued by the appropriate state agency as a condition of employment, and guides candidates through the process where relevant.