Sr. Staff Database Reliability Engineer- Eng

Why UKG:


At UKG, the work you do matters. The code you ship, the decisions you make, and the care you show a customer all add up to real impact. Today, tens of millions of workers start and end their days with our workforce operating platform. Helping people get paid, grow in their careers, and shape the future of their industries. That's what we do.

We never stop learning. We never stop challenging the norm. We push for better, and we celebrate the wins along the way. Here, you'll get flexibility that's real, benefits you can count on, and a team that succeeds together. Because at UKG, your work matters-and so do you.

About the Team
The Database Reliability Engineering (DBRE) team is responsible for ensuring the availability, performance, security, and operational excellence of UKG's enterprise database platforms, including SQL Server and PostgreSQL, across cloud and hybrid environments.
The team partners closely with SRE, Cloud Platform, Infrastructure, Security, and Application Engineering to deliver reliable, scalable database services that support mission-critical workloads. DBRE operates with a reliability engineering mindset, emphasizing automation, standardization, and systemic improvements to reduce operational risk and protect customer trust.

About the Role
The Senior Staff Database Reliability Engineer exists to set technical direction and ensure the reliability of UKG's SQL Server and PostgreSQL platforms across cloud and hybrid deployments. This role is accountable for defining reliability standards, leading complex technical initiatives, and driving automation that improves platform resilience while reducing operational toil.
You will operate as a senior individual contributor and technical authority, influencing architecture decisions, mentoring other engineers, and partnering across teams to ensure database reliability is built into the platform by design.
In this role, you will:

Design, review, and evolve high-availability and disaster recovery architectures for SQL Server and PostgreSQL to meet defined availability and resilience targets.
Lead incident response and root cause analysis for high-severity database incidents, identifying systemic issues and implementing long-term reliability improvements.
Define and maintain reliability standards, including SLOs, SLIs, error budgets, and operational readiness requirements for relational database services.
Build and maintain automation for database provisioning, configuration, patching, upgrades, backup validation, and disaster recovery testing.
Architect and operate SQL Server and PostgreSQL platforms in cloud and hybrid environments, including IaaS-based and managed database offerings.
Implement and improve database observability using metrics, logs, and performance telemetry to enable proactive detection of availability, capacity, and performance issues.
Partner with application, SRE, and cloud engineering teams to review designs and ensure database reliability and scalability are incorporated early in the development lifecycle.
Establish and maintain runbooks and operational procedures, focusing on repeatability, automation, and reduced human dependency.
Mentor and provide technical guidance to DBREs and adjacent engineers to improve overall database platform maturity.

About You
Basic Qualifications

Demonstrated ability to design and operate enterprise SQL Server and/or PostgreSQL platforms supporting business-critical workloads.
Demonstrated experience leading incident response and root cause analysis for production relational database systems.
Hands-on experience with automation and scripting for database operations (e.g., PowerShell, Python, or equivalent).
Ability to define engineering standards, review designs, and influence technical decisions across multiple teams.

(These qualifications represent the minimum requirements to be considered for the role.)

Preferred Qualifications

Experience operating SQL Server and PostgreSQL in cloud or hybrid environments, including IaaS or managed database services.
Experience implementing monitoring, alerting, and observability for large-scale relational database platforms.
Experience improving operational maturity through automation, standardization, and reliability engineering practices.
Experience partnering with Security or Compliance teams to support data protection, audit, or regulatory requirements.

Company Overview:

UKG is the Workforce Operating Platform that puts workforce understanding to work. With the world's largest collection of workforce insights, and people-first AI, our ability to reveal unseen ways to build trust, amplify productivity, and empower talent, is unmatched. It's this expertise that equips our customers with the intelligence to solve any challenge in any industry - because great organizations know their workforce is their competitive edge. Learn more at ukg.com.

Equal Opportunity Employer


UKG is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, disability, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, and other legally protected categories.

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It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.


Disability Accommodation in the Application and Interview Process

For individuals with disabilities that need additional assistance at any point in the application and interview process, please email View email address on click.appcast.io.


The pay range for this position is $145,600 to $209,300. The actual base pay offered may vary depending on skills, experience, job-related knowledge and work location. In addition to base pay, employees may be eligible to participate in a performance-based bonus plan and to receive restricted stock unit awards as part of total compensation. Learn more about UKG's benefits and rewards at