As a Staff Database Administrator, you will play a key role in maintaining and optimizing the database infrastructure that powers high-traffic, globally accessible knowledge platforms. Your work will directly support the reliability and performance of systems used by millions every day.
Key Responsibilities
- Monitor and maintain the health, performance, and security of large-scale MariaDB and MySQL environments across production, staging, and development.
- Design and manage complex replication setups, ensuring data consistency and availability across multiple sites.
- Collaborate on schema design and query optimization, guiding changes that improve efficiency and scalability.
- Enhance monitoring systems to improve alerting, metrics collection, and incident response for database services.
- Lead capacity planning efforts, including hardware provisioning and performance forecasting for on-prem infrastructure.
- Automate routine database operations and maintenance workflows to increase reliability and reduce manual effort.
- Ensure robust backup and recovery processes are in place and regularly tested.
- Engage with upstream MariaDB communities to help identify, report, and resolve bugs.
- Participate in a shared on-call rotation, responding to incidents and contributing to post-mortem analyses.
Qualifications
Successful candidates will have at least six years of hands-on experience managing production MySQL or MariaDB systems at scale. Required skills include deep knowledge of SQL, query optimization, replication topologies, Linux internals, and storage performance. A degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience is expected. Fluency in English and the ability to work asynchronously in a distributed team are essential.
Preferred qualifications include scripting proficiency in Python, experience with SRE practices, configuration management, and orchestration tools. Familiarity with LAMP stack components—especially PHP, HHVM, memcached, and Redis—is advantageous. Experience with MediaWiki or distributed storage systems like Ceph, Swift, or Cassandra is a plus. Contributions to open source projects are highly valued.
Work Environment
This is a remote-first role with team members across more than 40 countries. Employees must be authorized to work in their country of residence. The organization operates as a nonprofit, sustained by public donations and committed to equitable access to knowledge. Travel for team collaboration may occur 1–2 times per year.
Compensation is competitive and adjusted based on location, with salaries ranging from US$134,133 to US$208,254 for US-based roles. Pay is determined by skills, experience, and local cost of living, without regard to salary history. The organization is an equal opportunity employer and fosters an inclusive culture that welcomes diverse perspectives and backgrounds.
