Lead Database Engineer

Who We Are

Our client is a global quantitative hedge fund operating across major liquid asset classes. The firm is highly systematic and technology‑driven, with databases forming a critical backbone for research, trading, and operational systems. Reliability, performance, and security of on‑prem infrastructure are core to the business.

We Are Seeking: Lead Database Engineer

This is a hands‑on lead role within the global database team, combining deep technical ownership with light people leadership (approximately 20-30%). You will remain directly involved in day‑to‑day database engineering while providing guidance, review, and direction to other engineers.

The role is suited for a true database engineer - not a data engineer - with strong experience running production databases in on‑prem Linux environments.

We welcome applicants from across the globe. Relocation support will be provided for suitable candidates.

Key Responsibilities

• Support, administer, and secure production databases across the firm
• Design and operate high‑availability, resilient database systems
• Work closely with business users and engineers to translate requirements into database solutions
• Lead and contribute to database projects including upgrades, performance tuning, and capacity planning
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and review for a small database engineering team
• Own database reliability across production, UAT, and development environments
• Maintain strong standards around monitoring, backup, recovery, and security

Requirements

• Hands‑on lead‑level experience as a Database Engineer (still writing SQL, tuning, troubleshooting)
• Strong experience with SQL Server and/or PostgreSQL
  (experience in both preferred, but at least one is required)
• On‑prem database experience on Linux is mandatory
• Solid background in database administration, performance tuning, HA/DR, and security
• Experience supporting analytical and platform databases such as ClickHouse and Snowflake is highly relevant
• Experience with Oracle is acceptable, but candidates must be open to working primarily with non‑Oracle databases
• Comfortable taking on 20-30% people leadership alongside technical delivery
• Experience in production environments with high reliability and uptime expectations
• Familiarity with scripting (Shell, PowerShell, Python, Ansible) is a plus
• Exposure to cloud database administration is beneficial but not essential

Why Join Us

• Lead a critical database function in a global hedge fund environment
• Stay hands‑on while stepping into a technical leadership role
• Work on complex, high‑performance database systems
• Strong engineering culture with high standards and real ownership

Selby Jennings is a Trading Style of Phaidon International (License Number 16S8194)