Senior Database Developer (PostgreSQL)

Job Description

Job Description

About Peregrine

Peregrine Advisors is a rapidly growing AI and data innovation hub helping government solve hard problems and deliver better outcomes. We work across the full lifecycle—from strategy and governance through architecture, engineering, analytics, AI, visualization, and training—for clients including the SEC, PCAOB, DDOT, and DCAA.

Our clients describe our support as “absolutely excellent” and our people as “instrumental to organization’s success.” Winner of the United Nations COP27 Datathon, our work has earned all Exceptional CPARS ratings, SEC Chair’s Awards, the SEC Vision Award, and recognition from FDA leadership.

We are also built differently. Peregrine is the first and only social enterprise organized as a Benefit Corporation and SBA 8(a) company focused on AI and data for government. We believe business success should create client value, social value, and opportunity for our people.

As we enter our next stage of growth, we need dependable, motivated, and skilled people who have a combination of intellectual curiosity and intellectual courage. With new clients, larger programs, and expanding responsibilities, the people joining Peregrine now will have the opportunity to help shape the company we become.

People first. Ownership always.

We solve problems through people, process, and technology—in that order. Technology matters, but people make transformation happen. That principle defines our culture. Trust and motivation come before competence. We hire people we can trust, who care deeply about what they do, take ownership, learn quickly, help one another, and refuse to walk past a problem because it belongs to someone else.

At Peregrine, you are not joining simply to fill a position. You are joining a team, taking ownership of a mission, and helping build a company. If that excites you, we should talk.

At Peregrine Advisors, you will own the databases behind a federal enterprise data platform: their design, their performance and reliability, and the integrity of the data in them. But we hire people, not seats. As the work evolves, you will move to where the hardest problems are.

This is a hybrid work arrangement based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, and the commuting cadence varies by assignment. The initial engagement requires United States citizenship and the ability to obtain a Public Trust determination.

Your first project

Your first project will likely have you owning the physical design, the data models, and the performance of that layer under real query volume. Depending on the assignment, you may:

• Design and maintain databases that scale, in Amazon Aurora (PostgreSQL-compatible), Amazon DynamoDB, and the platform's other data stores.
• Design the logical and physical data models, and build the schemas, indexes, views, stored procedures, and functions that implement them.
• Write and tune complex Structured Query Language (SQL), reading execution plans and adjusting indexes until high-volume queries hold up.
• Build and support extract, transform, and load (ETL) and extract, load, and transform (ELT) pipelines and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) loads that keep the data accurate and complete.
• Track down performance, locking, replication, and data consistency problems.
• Keep the databases available and recoverable through monitoring, capacity planning, backup and recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery.
• Secure them with least-privilege access, and keep them auditable.
• Work with architects, developers, and data engineers, and move database changes through continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) and infrastructure as code.

You deliver a database layer analysts and systems can trust at scale. You automate the data-integration and load patterns that would otherwise be hand-run, and you build the access controls that keep a governed platform governed.

This is where you start, not the shape of your career here.

Requirements

• 7+ years of hands-on database development and database engineering experience in support of enterprise applications
• Bachelor's degree
• Expertise in Amazon Aurora (PostgreSQL-compatible), covering schema design, stored procedures and functions, indexing, and execution-plan analysis
• Experience with Amazon DynamoDB, covering data modeling, partition and key design, and Global and Local Secondary Indexes (GSIs and LSIs)
• Advanced SQL skills across complex queries, views, stored procedures, and functions, together with relational design, normalization, and data modeling
• Performance and query tuning that resolves slow queries, locking, and deadlocks through indexing and execution-plan work
• ETL and ELT development and data integration across Amazon Web Services (AWS) data services, such as Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), S3, and data migration services
• Data security controls such as encryption, access management, auditing, and compliance
• Support for cloud-native applications in AWS through CI/CD and development, security, and operations (DevSecOps) practices, including monitoring, backup and recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery
• Proficiency in writing, PowerPoint, and Excel

Preferred

• An AWS certification at the level of Database Specialty, Developer Associate, or Solutions Architect
• Federal information technology experience with systems that require security controls and compliance frameworks
• Experience with high-volume transaction processing, large-scale data platforms, or regulatory reporting
• Experience with database observability and monitoring tools such as Amazon CloudWatch, Performance Insights, Datadog, or Splunk
• Experience with Amazon Redshift, AWS Glue, AWS Database Migration Service (DMS), or AWS Lake Formation
• Experience with infrastructure as code, including Terraform, CloudFormation, and the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK)
• Experience with artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted development tooling

Who you are

You make databases fast and keep their data trustworthy. You have designed and tuned large data platforms and understand why the physical model matters. You experiment, fail, learn, and repeat quickly. You would rather own an outcome than be handed a task.

What you bring

• Deep, hands-on ownership of a database layer spanning Amazon Aurora (PostgreSQL-compatible), DynamoDB, and S3, including physical design, tuning, data modeling, and database-architecture decisions within the broader platform.
• The practical craft of stored procedures, data integration, S3 load patterns into the platform stores, and governed access.
• Sound judgment in a regulated environment where accuracy and auditability are not optional.

You adapt your development workflow as AI tools evolve, using them to help implement, test, and improve the components you own. You give the tools clear context, review and test their output, and remain accountable for the code you deliver.

When we talk

Be prepared to discuss a difficult problem you worked through, the decisions you made, what happened, and what you learned.

Benefits

This is a full-time W-2 position with a salary of $150,000 to $170,000 per year.

Benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance with the employee premium fully paid and half of dependent premiums; employer-paid life, accidental death, and short-term and long-term disability insurance; a 401(k) matched 100% up to 4% of salary, vesting immediately; unlimited paid time off; and sponsored professional certifications and continuing education.

What we offer

You will work alongside developers, engineers, data scientists, architects, and strategists, on work ranging from strategy to implementation. We support your development across assignments and clients through extensive onboarding, sponsored professional certifications such as the Data Management Capability Assessment Model (DCAM) and AWS technical certifications, and rotation across functions to expand your skills and perspective. The mission is real, the problems are hard, and you own what you ship.

What we commit to

As a Benefit Corporation, our commitment runs three ways: real, measurable value for our clients; government that works better for the public; and a team that makes everyone in it better.

We hire people who want to help build the firm, not just work at it. If that is you, apply.

Peregrine Advisors is an equal opportunity employer.

Peregrine exclusively works with OPEN Data Jobs to recruit our team. Register with OPEN Data Jobs to be considered for this and future openings.