Database Engineer - Professional Archive Search

As a Database Engineer on the Professional Archive Search team, you’ll design, scale, and maintain the data infrastructure that powers our platform. You’ll play a key role in ensuring our systems can handle high-velocity data while remaining reliable, secure, and performant.
In this role, you’ll help bridge application development and data reliability, contributing to real-time data pipelines and optimizing system performance. Your work will support Smarsh clients in meeting their compliance needs by enabling efficient, scalable data and search capabilities.
You’ll collaborate with cross-functional partners across Product Management, Engineering, and Site Reliability to solve complex challenges and continuously improve our systems. We’re looking for someone who is curious, collaborative, and motivated to make an impact through thoughtful engineering.

As a Database Engineer on the Professional Archive Search team, you’ll design, scale, and maintain the data infrastructure that powers our platform. You’ll play a key role in ensuring our systems can handle high-velocity data while remaining reliable, secure, and performant.
In this role, you’ll help bridge application development and data reliability, contributing to real-time data pipelines and optimizing system performance. Your work will support Smarsh clients in meeting their compliance needs by enabling efficient, scalable data and search capabilities.
You’ll collaborate with cross-functional partners across Product Management, Engineering, and Site Reliability to solve complex challenges and continuously improve our systems. We’re looking for someone who is curious, collaborative, and motivated to make an impact through thoughtful engineering.

How will you contribute?

• Support and empower your team by contributing to a collaborative, inclusive, and respectful work environment

• Partner with engineers and stakeholders across teams to design and implement scalable data solutions

• Participate in a shared on-call rotation to support system reliability and incident response with a focus on learning and prevention

• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to define technical requirements, timelines, and deliverables

• Apply modern engineering practices, including Agile methodologies, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps principles

• Review code and database changes, identify areas for improvement, and help reduce technical debt

• Troubleshoot and resolve production issues to maintain high availability and performance

• Continuously learn about emerging technologies and evaluate how they can benefit the team

• Monitor database health and performance using tools such as Splunk, Datadog, and Grafana

What will you bring?

We’re looking for someone who enjoys working with others, values continuous learning, and communicates openly and respectfully. You share knowledge, support teammates, and contribute to a positive and inclusive team culture.

• Experience working in a modern private cloud-based environment and familiarity with distributed systems

• Exposure to some of our technology stack, along with a willingness to learn new tools and technologies

• Experience designing logical and physical data models, including schema design and data relationships

• Ability to monitor and optimize database performance, including tuning queries and indexing strategies

• Understanding of data security practices such as encryption, access controls, and auditing

• Experience troubleshooting database issues and supporting systems that require high availability

• Ability to plan for data growth and scale infrastructure to meet future needs

• A collaborative mindset, with openness to feedback and different perspectives

• Understanding of modern development practices and Agile methodologies

• Ability to communicate progress, challenges, and ideas clearly

• Comfort working in evolving environments where requirements may change over time

• A proactive approach to problem-solving and cross-functional collaboration

Preferred Qualifications

• Around 4+ years of experience in database engineering or a related field

• Experience with search technologies such as Solr, Lucene, or Elasticsearch

• Strong proficiency in SQL, including query plan optimization and indexing

• Experience with database systems such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MS SQL Server

• Experience migrating data, queries, functions, tables between different database systems

• Familiarity with Linux-based systems

• Experience writing scripts or automation tools (e.g., Python, Java, or similar languages)

• Exposure to messaging systems such as Kafka or AMQ

• Participation in open-source projects or technical communities

• The ProArchive Application Development team embraces an AI-first mindset, continuously elevating developer productivity through tools like GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, and Claude Code. We’re seeking developers who are passionate about advancing their AI-assisted development skills and leveraging them to deliver innovative, high-impact solutions for Smarsh customers.

What do we offer?

• Healthcare insurance: We provide medical, dental, and vision insurance, and a flexible spending account that allows you to set aside pre-tax dollars to pay for eligible out-of-pocket expenses.

• Stock options.

• Personal time off: A healthy work-life balance is critical to your success at the office. Smarsh offers a “take-what-you-need” time off policy as well as flexible work arrangements.

• 401K Match: Smarsh provides a 4% 401K match for which employees are fully vested on day one.

• Sabbatical: The Smarsh sabbatical programme provides a time to recharge, study or simply do something you are passionate about away from the workplace. Employees are eligible after six years of service.

• Recognition: We’re big on kudos for a job well done. Our employee-recognition programme enables co-workers to nominate their peers who best embody our core values for recognition.

Don't meet every requirement? Apply anyway! We value diverse candidates and encourage applications, even if you don't perfectly match the job description. Studies have shown that some strong candidates may self-select out of the interview process prematurely, at Smarsh we encourage an inclusive, high-performing environment.

Smarsh is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to their race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran. Smarsh invites all qualified interested applicants to apply for career opportunities. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions. Including frequency of functions