Cloud Database Engineer / Modern DBA

About the role

Interra Health is converting how we run production databases — from reactive, hands-on administration into automated, cloud-scale reliability engineering. As our Cloud Database Engineer, you'll own that transformation end to end: replacing manual tuning, patching, and firefighting with self-tuning indexes, policy-as-code access controls, and an IaC-managed fleet that runs cleanly across regions and clouds. This role exists because our current database operations don't scale with a fast-growing, multi-cloud SaaS business, and it's for someone who wants to solve a hard database problem once, then build the automation that means no one solves it manually again.

Key Responsibilities

• Own database performance and reliability — replace manual query and index tuning with automated performance profiling and self-tuning indexing.
• Drive schema governance by codifying schema-change guardrails directly into CI/CD pipelines, replacing manual pull-request review as the safety net.
• Build policy-as-code access control for database-level permissions (grants & roles), with automated audit trails that satisfy PHI and compliance requirements.
• Lead the shift to centralized, IaC-provisioned observability — instrumenting the fleet with automated anomaly detection in place of manually built per-application dashboards.
• Partner with Platform Engineering and Production Operations to deploy APM/tracing that auto-correlates delays to root cause, and to set SLOs with automated alert-to-runbook response.
• Own automated job-failure detection with real-time Slack/PagerDuty alerting, replacing daily manual review of job history.
• Build and maintain an IaC-managed, self-healing database fleet — automated backups, patching, and a unified control plane across regions and clouds.
• Apply AI-assisted tooling — query optimization, anomaly triage, runbook generation — to accelerate database automation and cut manual toil, evaluating new AI capabilities as they mature.
• Serve as the team's deep database expert, advising Platform Engineering and application teams on data architecture, performance, and reliability trade-offs.

What You'll Bring

Degree & Experience: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience; 5+ years administering and optimizing production relational databases, with demonstrated experience automating manual database operations.

Required: Deep expertise in database performance tuning, indexing, and query optimization; hands-on experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (e.g., Terraform), CI/CD pipelines, and cloud platforms (Azure and/or AWS); working knowledge of policy-as-code access control and audit/compliance requirements.

Preferred: Experience with APM/observability tooling (e.g., Datadog, New Relic), multi-cloud database fleets, automated alerting/runbook systems, and healthcare (PHI/HIPAA) or PE-backed, post-merger SaaS environments. Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, evolving environment with shifting priorities and incomplete documentation.

Core Competencies

Knowledge & Application: Applies deep, specialized knowledge of database systems and cloud infrastructure to design automated solutions that eliminate recurring manual work, adapting established patterns to Interra's multi-cloud environment.

Complexity & Problem Solving: Independently diagnoses and resolves complex, ambiguous database reliability problems — such as root-causing production incidents or redesigning access controls — with minimal oversight, exercising judgment on when to escalate.

Collaboration & Interaction: Partners across Platform Engineering, Production Operations, and application teams to translate database expertise into shared tooling and standards, influencing technical decisions without formal authority.

Working Conditions

• Remote-first: this role is fully remote (US), with occasional overlap needed across distributed teammates' time zones.
• Travel: minimal, estimated under 10% — occasional team offsites or in-person planning sessions.
• Operates in a fast-paced, PE-backed, post-merger SaaS environment with evolving systems and processes.