Lead Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE) - Small Business Technologies

About the Role

The Lead Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE) is a senior technical leader responsible for ensuring the reliability, scalability, performance, and operational excellence of the organization's data platforms.

This role blends deep database expertise (DBA discipline) with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles, focusing on automation, observability, resiliency, and operational maturity. The DBRE partners closely with platform, application, and data teams to ensure database systems are highly available, cost-efficient, and production-ready at scale.

Database Reliability & Operations

• Own end-to-end reliability of critical database systems (availability, performance, durability)
• Define and maintain SLIs/SLOs for database services
• Lead incident response and root cause analysis for database-related outages
• Design and implement failover, replication, and disaster recovery strategies

Automation & SRE Practices

• Automate database provisioning, scaling, backups, and recovery processes
• Implement Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and GitOps approaches for database environments
• Drive reduction of manual operational work through tooling and self-service capabilities
• Establish reliability engineering practices (error budgets, postmortems, continuous improvement)

Observability & Performance

• Build and maintain database observability (metrics, logs, traces)
• Proactively monitor system health and performance bottlenecks
• Optimize query performance, indexing strategies, and resource utilization
• Establish capacity planning and forecasting models

Platform & Architecture

• Partner with platform engineering to standardize database patterns and tooling
• Support cloud-native database architectures (managed services, distributed systems)
• Evaluate and recommend database technologies and storage solutions
• Ensure systems are designed for resilience, scalability, and cost efficiency

Data Protection & Resilience

• Own backup strategies, validation, and restore testing
• Lead disaster recovery planning and execution readiness
• Ensure data integrity, consistency, and compliance with governance standards

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work with engineering teams to improve data access patterns and reliability
• Partner with security and compliance teams on data protection requirements
• Influence application design to align with database reliability best practices
• Mentor engineers on database performance and operational excellence

Leadership & Influence

• Act as the technical lead for database reliability across teams
• Define standards, best practices, and operating models for DBRE
• Lead cross-team initiatives to improve reliability and reduce systemic risk
• Mentor senior engineers and contribute to talent development

Success Profile (First 6-12 Months)

• Database SLIs/SLOs defined and actively managed
• Automated backup, recovery, and failover processes in place
• Improved observability across critical data platforms
• Reduction in database-related incidents and MTTR
• Standardized database reliability practices adopted across teams

Required Qualifications

• 8-12+ years in database engineering, SRE, or infrastructure engineering

• Hands-on experience with production-grade relational and/or NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, DynamoDB, etc.)

• Experience operating systems at scale in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP)

• Proven ownership of high-availability, mission-critical systems

• Strong knowledge of:

• Database internals, replication, and recovery mechanisms

• Performance tuning and optimization techniques

• Distributed systems and fault-tolerant architectures

• Experience with:

• Observability tools (Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, etc.)

• Automation tools (Terraform, Ansible, CI/CD pipelines)

• Containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)

• Familiarity with data lifecycle management and storage optimization

• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence in cross-functional environments

• Strong incident management and problem-solving skills under pressure

• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to leadership stakeholders

• Experience defining engineering standards and operational practices

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with large-scale, multi-tenant or SaaS data platforms
• Background in platform engineering or SRE organizations
• Experience with data compliance, governance, and audit requirements
• Contributions to reliability frameworks or internal tooling

Why work for us

At H&R Block, our purpose is simple: to provide help and inspire confidence in our clients and communities everywhere. For more than 70 years, we've led the tax industry and we continue to evolve through our Block Next strategy, blending human expertise with digital innovation.

That same commitment to care extends to our associates. When you join us, you become part of a High Performing, Connected Culture built on strong relationships, continuous learning, and a shared commitment to making a meaningful impact. We invest in your well-being through competitive pay, comprehensive benefits, and support for life both in and outside of work.

Pay Range Information

The pay range for this position is listed below. Local minimum wage laws apply. This information is posted pursuant to local requirements to provide applicants with information about what they might be eligible to receive. Individual pay decisions will depend on job-related factors such as experience, education, skill, performance, and geographic location where work will be performed. Successful candidates may be able to participate in one or more incentive compensation or short-term incentive plans, which could generate additional earnings in accordance with the terms of each plan. Qualifying associates can enroll themselves and/or their eligible dependents in medical and prescription drug coverage; can participate in the H&R Block Retirement Savings Plan (401(k) Plan), the Employee Assistance Program, (virtual) fitness center programs, and the associate discount program; are automatically enrolled in Business Travel Accident Insurance; and receive Associate Tax Prep benefit.

Pay Range

$117,700.00 - $188,300.00/Yr.