Database Platform Staff Engineer

Magnite is the world's largest independent sell-side advertising platform. Our infrastructure processes trillions of ad requests per day, backed by several hundred database instances spanning on-premise datacenters and AWS.

The DBA team is looking for an experienced database platform engineer to lead the technical direction for how our databases are built, operated, and scaled. We're maturing the team's hybrid cloud infrastructure, and we need someone fluent in the current industry-standard technologies who can bring those practices to a team with deep operational expertise. We have footprints both on-premises and in the public cloud; our goal is common practices across them, not consolidation onto a single platform.

This is a hands-on individual contributor role. Your influence comes from the systems you build, the standards you set, and the engineers you mentor. You'll be working with many engineering teams, including software engineering, data engineering, SRE, and production engineering.

Set technical direction

Own the architecture of the infrastructure-as-code behind every database platform we run - Terraform for provisioning, Puppet for configuration

Unify how the team builds tooling and automation across on-premise and cloud, replacing platform-by-platform approaches with common patterns

Define what production-ready means for a database platform here, and hold new systems to it

Take on database problems that have no clear owner or defined approach, and define both

Build, don't just specify

Build the reference implementations that turn a proposal into the team's default way of working

Build the golden paths that let engineering teams provision, change, and operate databases without the DBA team becoming a bottleneck including versioned, automated schema change management

Engage with the analytics team to shape how we incorporate cloud native platforms like Snowflake and Databricks seamlessly.

Write the design documents and decision records that become the team's institutional memory

Operate, automate, and stay audit-ready

Identify systemic sources of operational toil and eliminate them through automation

Support the team's recurring SOX and compliance audit obligations, including access reviews and change management evidence

Build those controls and evidence trails into the platform, so audit readiness is automatic rather than manual

Participate in the team's shared 24/7 on-call rotation

Lead through influence

Mentor current team members technically, building platform engineering practice: self-service, versioned interfaces, automation treated as a product

Set technical direction in design discussions across the organization, and drive adoption of the patterns you establish

Raise the technical bar of the engineers around you through design review, pairing, and the quality of your own work

We’re looking for someone with:

6+ years designing and operating production database platforms at scale

Deep expertise across relational platforms — MySQL and its variants, PostgreSQL, RDS, Aurora

Substantial experience running production database platforms at scale in both public cloud and on-premise — managed and self-managed services in AWS or equivalent, plus datacenter infrastructure — and you can speak to where the two genuinely differ

Several years hands-on with Snowflake or Databricks, with enough depth to guide platform decisions rather than only operate what exists

Infrastructure-as-code at a scale where module design and state management decisions carry real consequences — strong Terraform, plus configuration management experience with Puppet, Ansible, or Chef (Puppet preferred)

Schema migration and orchestration tooling — Flyway, Airflow, Jenkins or equivalents

Fluency in SQL, Python, and Bash — enough to build tooling, not only to operate it

How you work

A track record of establishing technical standards that teams you don't manage adopted

Experience growing platform capability in engineers rooted in operations

Hands-on experience supporting SOX or comparable compliance audits in a database context, and a genuine appreciation for why those controls exist

Working hours: This role requires substantial daily overlap with US business hours to collaborate with engineering teams across the organization.

On-call: This role is part of the team's shared 24/7 on-call rotation.

Perks and Benefits:

Comprehensive Healthcare Coverage from Day One

Generous Time Off

Holiday Breaks and Quarterly Wellness Days

Equity and Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Family-Focused Benefits and Parental Leave

Disability and Life Insurance

Cell Phone Subsidy

Fitness and Wellness Reimbursement

Company Culture:

We believe collaboration is essential to success. Magnite’s hybrid schedule includes two days worked remotely (Monday and Friday) and three days on-site (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday). Our offices provide lunches, beverages, snacks, training and development, and office events to support your work week. We also understand you have appointments, families, hobbies, and other commitments. Magnite strives to maintain a healthy work/life integration for all employees so you can bring your best every day - both at work and at home.

Magnite Invests in You:

Career Development Initiatives and a Career Growth Framework

Culture and Inclusion Programs

Bonusly Peer-to-Peer Recognition Program

Community Service and Volunteer Events

Company-Matched Charitable Contributions

Mental Health Support

About Us

The world's leading agencies and brands trust our platform to access brand-safe, high-quality ad inventory and execute billions of advertising transactions each month. Anchored in bustling New York City, sunny Los Angeles, mile-high Denver, historic London, and down under in Sydney, Magnite has offices across North America, EMEA, LATAM, and APAC.

Our Commitment: We aim to incorporate a wide range of voices into our Magnite culture, cultivating an environment where employees feel welcomed, cared for, and encouraged to freely share ideas. We are committed to employee growth, collaboration, inclusion, and innovation. We invest in Magnite’s local communities. We seek talent from all backgrounds to champion corporate values of seeing the big picture and being catalysts of change.

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Recruiting Agency Notice

Magnite does not accept agency resumes and is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.