Database Engineer (DBA)
THG Ingenuity · Manchester
About THG Ingenuity
THG Ingenuity is a proprietary Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology, robotics, and operations platform built for global ecommerce. Developed through more than two decades of operating ecommerce and retail services at scale, its software and automation capabilities have been engineered, tested, and refined through the real-world demands of managing complex commerce operations. Today, THG Ingenuity provides an integrating operating environment that enables brands to intelligently optimise the entire commerce lifecycle from browsing and checkout to AI inventory management and forecasting, automated fulfilment, carrier control, and customer experience. The platform comprises:
- THG Fulfil: The fulfilment operating system for global ecommerce. Delivered via a proprietary SaaS and Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) model, THG Fulfil orchestrates every stage of checkout, fulfilment, delivery, and customer experience through an integrated system.
- THG Studios: The UK's most innovative creative hub, helping brands create content that connects, experiences that engage, and IP that scales, all from its end-to-end, in-house facilities.
- THG Commerce: A cloud-native technology stack enabling retailers and brands to create intelligent, AI-powered, digital shopping experiences, while integrated marketplace and social commerce functionality allows brands to reach customers across every sales channel
With its expertise in building and scaling brands, THG Ingenuity is uniquely positioned to bring pertinent, pragmatic, and global know-how across all aspects of commerce.
Database Engineer (DBA)
Company: THG Ingenuity Location: Manchester (Head Office)
Reports to: Database Platform Manager
Role Overview
We are looking for a Database Engineer to help run and improve our database platform.
Our estate runs on Google Cloud Platform following a recent migration to self-managed services. There is plenty still to do in the next phase of modernising the estate, and you will be hands-on in that work as well as in the day-to-day running of the platform.
You will work alongside a small team of database engineers and closely with engineering and infrastructure teams, keeping our database environments secure, reliable and performant. There is real scope to grow here, and you will be supported to deepen your technical expertise and take on more as you do.
The role participates in a rotating on-call rota and occasionally requires out-of-hours work to support deployments, maintenance or incident response.
Key Responsibilities
Database administration
- Install, configure, maintain and upgrade PostgreSQL and SQL Server environments across development, test and production
- Ensure database servers are securely configured, patched and compliant with operational standards
- Own backup, restore and maintenance strategies, and test recovery procedures regularly
- Maintain database security, access control and auditing practices
Cloud and infrastructure
- Deploy and manage database environments in Google Cloud Platform, using Compute Engine instances or managed services such as Cloud SQL where appropriate
- Configure networking, storage and security controls for cloud-hosted database systems
- Support the remaining on-premise footprint and the realities of running a hybrid estate
Modernisation
- Contribute to migration and consolidation work across the estate, covering schema and code conversion, data migration, testing and cutover
- Help shape and deliver the next phase of modernisation across the estate
- Bring ideas forward: if you think there is a better way to do something, we want to hear it
Resilience and performance
- Build and maintain high availability and disaster recovery solutions, including replication
- Identify and resolve performance issues, and work with development teams on query, indexing and schema design
- Maintain monitoring and alerting so problems are caught proactively rather than reported by users
Automation and change
- Automate provisioning, patching, backups and routine maintenance
- Keep all scripts, configuration and database change in GitHub, delivered through CI/CD pipelines and proper change management
- Contribute to database standards, runbooks and documentation
Operational support
- Participate in the rotating on-call rota supporting production systems
- Provide day-to-day support to engineering and infrastructure teams
- Take part in incident response and post-incident review
Skills and Experience
Essential
- PostgreSQL (core requirement): solid production administration experience covering configuration, upgrades, backup and recovery, replication and basic performance tuning
- Microsoft SQL Server: production administration including availability groups, backups, patching and maintenance
- SQL: able to write and optimise complex queries and read an execution plan
- Google Cloud Platform: deploying and managing database infrastructure in GCP (Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, storage, networking, IAM)
- High availability and disaster recovery: supporting HA/DR architectures and replication technologies
- Backup and recovery: strong understanding of strategies and hands-on restore experience
- GitHub and CI/CD: working with source control day to day and comfortable with change management in a production environment
- Automation: scripting in Python, PowerShell or Bash to remove manual toil
- Monitoring and alerting: using enterprise tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, Cloud Monitoring or equivalent
- On-call: willing to join a rotating rota and handle production incidents
- Communication: clear written and verbal communication, and effective collaboration with engineering teams
Desirable
- Migration experience: moving production workloads between database engines
- Couchbase or comparable NoSQL / document-store experience
- CockroachDB or other distributed SQL platforms
- Infrastructure as code: Terraform or Ansible
- Database CI/CD tooling: Flyway, Liquibase or Redgate
- On-premise infrastructure: servers, storage, networking, virtualisation
- Kafka or streaming platforms
- Relevant certifications [if relevant]
You as a Person
- You are curious and like learning. The estate is changing, and you are keen to go deep in technologies that may not be your strongest today
- You challenge constructively. If something looks wrong or inefficient, you say so, with evidence and without waiting for permission
- You want room to grow. We have a culture that supports people stretching beyond their job description. If something interesting sits adjacent to your role, you will be encouraged to get involved rather than told it belongs to someone else
- You are methodical. Production databases reward care: you test, you document, and you think about the restore before the backup
- You communicate well with people who are not database engineers. You can explain what happened and why in terms a developer or a stakeholder can act on
- You are a dependable teammate. On-call only works when people look after each other, and you take that seriously
THG Ingenuity is proud to be a Disability Confident Committed employer. If you are invited to interview, please let us know if there are any reasonable adjustments we can make to the recruitment process that will enable you to perform to the best of your ability.
THG Ingenuity is committed to creating a diverse & inclusive environment and hence welcomes applications from all sections of the community.
Because of the high volumes of applications our opportunities attract, it sometimes takes us time to review and consider them all. We endeavour to respond to every application we receive within 14 days. If you haven't heard from us within that time frame or should you have any specific questions about this or other applications for positions at THG Ingenuity please contact one of our Talent team to discuss further.
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