Senior Database Platform Engineer

at  Proton

JOIN PROTON AND BUILD A BETTER INTERNET WHERE PRIVACY IS THE DEFAULT

At Proton, we believe that privacy is a fundamental human right and the cornerstone of democracy. Since our inception in 2014, founded by a team of scientists from CERN, we have dedicated ourselves to providing free and open-source technology to millions worldwide, ensuring access to privacy, security and freedom online.
Our journey began with Proton Mail, the largest secure email service globally, and has since expanded to include Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive and Proton Pass. These tools empower individuals and organisations to take control of their personal data, break away from Big Tech’s invasive practices and defeat censorship. Our work impacts hundreds of millions of lives, from activists on the front lines defending freedom to leaders in governments protecting sensitive information. In some cases, Proton’s services have even been instrumental in saving lives by enabling secure and private communications in high-risk situations.
Proton is a profitable company that does not rely upon VC funding, supporting over 100 million user accounts with a growing team of over 500 people from over 50 different countries, coming from the world’s top companies and universities. We value intelligence, learning potential and ambition in our hiring process. Adaptability is key as we navigate uncharted territories and redefine how business is conducted online.
Hiring at Proton is highly selective, with less than 1% of candidates hired. We believe smaller teams of exceptional talent will always prevail over larger teams with lower talent density. You’ll have the opportunity to work with many of the world’s top minds in their fields, ranging from former international math and science olympiad winners to chess champions.
We have a global mindset and big ambitions but remain a start-up at heart. We value empowerment and flexibility and keep our structure flat to keep moving fast and avoid unnecessary politics. Tired of blending into the crowd? Join us and do work you can truly be proud of. Check our open-source projects here!

ROLE OVERVIEW

Databases are the backbone of Proton’s constantly growing list of services and must scale along with our growth while being highly reliable. You’ll join the database team in our infrastructure department to improve and scale our databases while maximising availability and keeping our data safe and secure. You’ll collaborate with other infrastructure and development teams to ensure that database best practices are built into every aspect of design and implementation, improving automation and reducing manual operations of Proton’s database platform. In this role you’ll be able to effectively drive how our database platform will look like in the future, improving the user experience of millions of people around the world.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Support and manage web-scale fleet of mission-critical MySQL databases accessed through ProxySQL
• Boost existing automation in order to reduce operational workload and increase reliability
• Design, implement and execute new operational procedures and processes
• Use your programming/scripting skills to improve and create new code in order to help managing our database platform
• Participate in developing long-term database technology strategies and influence cross-company database engineering processes/standards
• Take part in product design reviews to provide feedback on architecture, design, system integration, performance and scalability
• Understand the application data as well as usage patterns to identify existing and future performance issues and resolve them quickly or head them off entirely
• Provide expertise to optimise various layers of database infrastructure, including hardware, OS, storage and network configurations
• Troubleshoot complex technical problems to understand root causes and provide workarounds with long-term solutions
• Keep our database platform up-to-date by preparing and executing upgrades of the full stack
• Work with software development teams to help in delivering low latency, highly available and secure services