Sr. Staff Database Engineer

At Early Warning, we’ve powered and protected the U.S. financial system for over thirty years with cutting-edge solutions like Zelle®, Paze℠, and so much more. As a trusted name in payments, we partner with thousands of institutions to increase access to financial services and protect transactions for hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses.

Positions located in Scottsdale, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York follow a hybrid work model to allow for a more collaborative working environment.

Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States, for any employer, at the date of hire. This position is ineligible for employment Visa sponsorship.

For more than three decades, bank-owned Early Warning has provided network intelligence that helps financial institutions get money moving. We are the owners and operators of the Zelle Network® - but we do so much more. Early Warning is the Trusted Custodian® of the National Shared Database (SM) Resource on which more than 2,500 financial institutions and other companies rely on as a source of intelligence for managing risk.

This is all made possible by hard-working individuals who “Own the Outcome” and have a “Win as One” mentality. They manage a vast variety of large and complex database systems that serve as the backbone of well-known and highly utilized applications including but not limited to Paze and Zelle.

If you want to be part of this incredible engine of innovation, are hungry for large scale challenges, and crave opportunities to grow professionally within the fintech sector, then we’d love to talk to you!

Overall, Purpose

A highly experienced database engineer with advanced technical skills across multiple database systems. Partners with leadership to define and execute database engineering strategy while ensuring database administration priorities related to security, risk management, scalability, and reliability are consistently met. Provides technical leadership across complex initiatives and serves as a key escalation point for database architecture and operations.

This role is designed for an experienced database engineering leader who operates at scale, influences technical direction across teams, and balances hands-on expertise with broader architectural ownership. Sr. Staff Database Engineers help ensure database platforms remain secure, reliable, scalable, and aligned with business and regulatory needs.

Essential Functions

Lead critical incidents from inception through resolution, including driving and contributing to root cause analysis efforts.

Partner with leadership to develop and refine technical roadmaps and database engineering strategy, including defining goals, priorities, and success measures.

Implement database administration strategy through hands-on technical leadership, planning, and execution of priorities across environments.

Document, onboard, and operationalize new database technologies and provide knowledge transfer to engineering and operations teams.

Support the company’s commitment to risk management by protecting the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of systems and data; align enterprise and department-level policies, procedures, and controls by contributing to compliance verbiage, evidence, and audits.

Take a forward-looking approach to upgrade paths, capacity planning, database hardening, and patching strategies.

Translate business requirements into technical specifications that demonstrate effective data design and system architecture to meet SLAs, including RTO and RPO objectives.

Serve as a key contributor to the implementation of proactive monitoring, alerting, and automated corrective actions.

Take ownership for technical product design and architecture, including system installation, configuration, performance management, and operational readiness.

Collaborate across functions to build influence, drive alignment, and support progressive, strategic change initiatives.

Mentor, coach, and guide Database Engineers; provide technical direction and constructive feedback to support individual and team growth.

Oversee and coordinate work across engineers in a supportive and effective manner, ensuring consistency with standards and best practices.

Work closely with customers and stakeholders to understand requirements and build trusted partnerships where database services are reliable, performant, and cost-effective.

The above job description is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of duties and standards of the position. Incumbents will follow instructions and perform other related duties as assigned by their supervisor.

Minimum Qualifications

Education and / or experience typically obtained through completion of a bachelor’s degree in computer science, Computer Science Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.

Typically 12 - 15 years of progressive experience of data management, architecture, and systems experience supporting large-scale implementations.

Advanced proficiency in Oracle and MS SQL Server, including clustering, replication, partitioning, encryption, and high availability / disaster recovery configurations from a design, implementation, and support standpoint. Must be willing to be cross-trained and lead in other RDBMS technologies.

Hands-on experience designing and deploying secure database systems for high performance, resiliency, availability, and reliability.

Advanced experience identifying, leading, and implementing tuning and performance improvements across database systems and the broader technology stack.

Strong RDBMS domain expertise with working knowledge of SDLC, Agile / Scrum / Lean methodologies, and DevOps practices.

Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to present data management concepts to stakeholders across most levels of the organization.

Ability to work outside normal business hours and participate in a 24x7 on-call rotation.

Background or drug screen.

Preferred Qualifications

M.S. or Ph.D. in Information Systems or a related field.

Cloud certification with a focus on database technologies.

Experience with mainstream on-premises and cloud-based database technologies such as AWS Aurora, RDS, EC2, Azure, OCI, or similar platforms.

Knowledge of NoSQL and Big Data analytics systems and use cases such as Redshift, HBase, and Aerospike.

Experience with monitoring and alerting systems such as AppDynamics, Zabbix, PagerDuty, OEM, Idera, and CloudWatch.

FinTech experience is highly beneficial.

The base pay scale for this position in :

Chicago, IL in USD per year is : $150,000 - $200,000.

Additionally, candidates are eligible for a discretionary incentive plan and benefits.

This pay scale is subject to change and is not necessarily reflective of actual compensation that may be earned, nor a promise of any specific pay for any specific candidate, which is always dependent on legitimate factors considered at the time of job offer. Early Warning Services takes into consideration a variety of factors when determining a competitive salary offer, including, but not limited to, the job scope, market rates and geographic location of a position, candidate’s education, experience, training, and specialized skills or certification(s) in relation to the job requirements and compared with internal equity (peers). The business actively supports and reviews wage equity to ensure that pay decisions are not based on gender, race, national origin, or any other protected classes.

Some of the Ways We Prioritize Your Health and Happiness

Healthcare Coverage – Competitive medical (PPO / HDHP), dental, and vision plans as well as company contributions to your Health Savings Account (HSA) or pre-tax savings through flexible spending accounts (FSA) for commuting, health & dependent care expenses.

401(k) Retirement Plan – Featuring a 100% Company Safe Harbor Match on your first 6% deferral immediately upon eligibility.

Paid Time Off – Flexible Time Off for Exempt (salaried) employees, as well as generous PTO for Non-Exempt (hourly) employees, plus 11 paid company holidays and a paid volunteer day.

12 weeks of Paid Parental Leave

Maven Family Planning – provides support through your Parenting journey including egg freezing, fertility, adoption, surrogacy, pregnancy, postpartum, early pediatrics, and returning to work.

And SO much more! We continue to enhance our program, so be sure to for the latest. Our team can share more during the interview process!

Early Warning Services, LLC (“Early Warning”) considers for employment, hires, retains and promotes qualified candidates on the basis of ability, potential, and valid qualifications without regard to race, religious creed, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, protected veteran or disability status or any factor prohibited by law, and as such affirms in policy and practice to support and promote equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and municipal laws. The company also prohibits discrimination on other bases such as medical condition, marital status or any other factor that is irrelevant to the performance of our employees.

Early Warning Services LLC is a proud participant in E-Verify, a federal program to help ensure a legal and authorized workforce. As part of our hiring process, we electronically verify the employment eligibility of all new hires through E-Verify. For more information on your rights and responsibilities under E-Verify please visit .