Senior Lead Database Reliability Engineer
As a Senior Lead Database Reliability Engineer, the successful candidate will own the reliability, scalability, and operational excellence of the database infrastructure powering one of the most demanding real-time platforms in sports betting and gaming. This role requires a combination of deep database expertise with software engineering and infrastructure automation to build resilient, self-healing systems, improve platform performance, and drive reliability across cloud and on-premises database environments.
DraftKings is looking for a technical leader to drive the roadmap for database reliability, design automation-first platforms, and mentor engineers across the organisation. The role involves partnering with application engineering teams to establish safe database practices and leveraging AI to improve engineering productivity and database operations.
- Drive the technical roadmap for database reliability across PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, ScyllaDB, Aerospike, and managed cloud services.
- Shape architecture for high availability, replication, partitioning, storage, and connection management.
- Design and build automation-first database platforms by developing Kubernetes operators, infrastructure as code, GitOps workflows, and production-quality tooling in Go or Python.
- Lead operational excellence by defining service level objectives, monitoring database health, capacity, and performance.
- Eliminate recurring reliability issues, validate backup and recovery processes, and lead critical production incidents through resolution.
- Optimize database performance and cost across cloud and on-premises environments through capacity planning, resource efficiency, and performance tuning.
- Partner with application engineering teams to establish safe database practices, including schema reviews, migration strategies, and zero-downtime deployment processes.
- Leverage AI to improve engineering productivity through intelligent observability, anomaly detection, and root cause analysis.
- Mentor engineers, lead design and code reviews, and influence technical direction across the organisation.
- At least 6 years of experience in Database Reliability Engineering, Database Platform Engineering, or Site Reliability Engineering with a strong database focus (required).
- Technical leadership experience delivering complex database infrastructure projects at scale (required).
- Deep expertise in at least one major relational database, preferably PostgreSQL (required).
- Operational experience supporting technologies such as MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, ScyllaDB, Aerospike, Aurora, Cloud SQL, and other managed cloud database services (required).
- Strong experience building and operating stateful workloads on Kubernetes using technologies such as StatefulSets, Persistent Volumes, database operators, Terraform, Pulumi, FluxCD, ArgoCD, GKE, and EKS (required).
- Hands-on software development experience using Go or Python to create automation, platform tooling, Kubernetes controllers, APIs, and infrastructure that reduces manual effort and improves engineering efficiency (required).
- A data-driven, automation-first mindset with proven experience improving reliability through observability, monitoring, service level objectives, capacity planning, performance optimization, and self-service engineering solutions (required).
- Practical experience using AI tools such as Claude, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or MCP to improve design, coding, documentation, troubleshooting, and operational workflows while applying sound engineering judgment to validate AI generated outputs (required).
- Excellent leadership and communication skills with a track record of mentoring engineers, influencing architectural decisions, collaborating across engineering teams, producing clear technical documentation, and driving continuous improvement in highly available production environments (required).
- US base salary range of 168,000.00 USD - 210,000.00 USD
- Bonus and equity
- Comprehensive health benefits including medical, dental, and vision
- Wellbeing program including free therapy sessions, employee assistance programs, and access to the Calm App
- 14 weeks of 100% paid parental leave
- Workplace lactation support and partnership with Care.com for backup childcare
- Family planning benefits including support for adoption, surrogacy, and fertility treatments
- Flexible PTO
- Pet insurance
- Gym reimbursement
- 401(k) matching and financial planning programs
- Commuter benefits
- Tuition reimbursement program
DraftKings Inc. is a leading American digital sports entertainment and gaming company, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 2012, it started in daily fantasy sports and has grown into one of the largest US online sportsbook and iGaming operators. The company offers mobile sports betting, online casino and daily fantasy contests across regulated North American markets. DraftKings is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange and employs several thousand people.