Database Reliability Engineer

• Ensure the rock-solid reliability of Starling's global database fleet, including hundreds of RDS instances, across AWS and GCP. • Architect cross-cloud portability using CNPG and cloud-native patterns, keeping the database layer provider-agnostic. • Build deep, proactive monitoring and alerting to detect performance regressions and health issues before they impact customers. • Design and implement rigorous Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery strategies with automated, multi-region resilience. • Hybrid role with a minimum of one day per week in one of Starling's offices: London, Southampton, Cardiff, Manchester, or Dublin.

• Extensive experience working with PostgreSQL and a passion for running stateful workloads natively on Kubernetes, leveraging CNPG for persistence, high availability, and automated failover. • Infrastructure-as-code mindset — believes infrastructure should be managed entirely via code, using Terraform to provision and custom APIs to handle orchestration. • Experience with distributed systems across multi-tenant, multi-region, and multi-cloud environments while ensuring rigorous data integrity and mobility. • Security and observability mindset — builds deep observability using Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, or Humio with automated guardrails. • Able to use Java to build robust, testable backend services that orchestrate the data layer, with clean relational modelling and performant DDL.

• Experience with zero-downtime migration strategies and data streaming for cross-cloud mobility. • Familiarity with CNPG (CloudNativePG) specifically for managing PostgreSQL on Kubernetes. • Background supporting large-scale database estates with automated multi-version upgrade strategies.

• Ensure the reliability of Starling's existing RDS footprint, architecting automated strategies for seamless multi-version upgrades and proactive performance tuning. • Use CNPG and cloud-native patterns to ensure the database layer remains provider-agnostic across AWS and GCP. • Build deep, proactive monitoring and alerting for the global database fleet to detect performance regressions and health issues early. • Support data streaming and zero-downtime migration strategies, ensuring data consistency and availability. • Design and implement Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery automation that ensures data durability and rapid recovery across regions.

• 25 days holiday plus public holidays taken whenever works best for you. • An extra day's holiday on your birthday. • Annual leave increases with length of service, with the option to buy or sell up to five extra days. • 16 hours paid volunteering time per year. • Salary sacrifice, company-enhanced pension scheme. • Life insurance at 4x salary and group income protection. • Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth, including mental health support and cancer care. • Generous family-friendly policies. • Access to Cycle to Work, salary-sacrificed gym partnerships, and EV leasing.

Starling Bank is the UK's first and leading digital bank, on a mission to fix banking. Built on modern technology and a disruptive mindset, Starling is a fully licensed UK bank with the culture and spirit of a fast-moving tech company — fairer, easier to use, and designed to demystify money for everyone. Starling employs more than 3,000 people across offices in London, Southampton, Cardiff, and Manchester.