Database Engineer

Job Description:

Here at Rakuten Kobo Inc. we offer a casual working start-up environment and a group of friendly and talented individuals. Our employees rank us highly in terms of commitment to work/life balance. We realize that for our people to be innovative, creative and passionate they need to feel valued and supported. We believe in rewarding all our employees with competitive salaries, performance based annual bonuses, stock options and training opportunities.

If you’re looking for a company that inspires passion, personal, and professional growth – join Kobo and come help us on our mission of making reading lives better.

The Role:

We are looking for a talented and motivated Database Engineer to join our database engineering team. In this role, you will be instrumental in ensuring the performance, reliability, and scalability of our core ecommerce systems. You'll work on exciting challenges related to high-volume transactions, performance, analytics and process automation.

Duties:

• Design & Development Contribute to the design, development, and implementation of robust, scalable, and high-performance database solutions tailored for ecommerce needs.
• Performance Optimization Proactively monitor, analyze, and optimize database queries, stored procedures, and schema designs to ensure optimal transaction processing and data retrieval.
• Reliability & Availability Implement and maintain robust backup, recovery, and disaster recovery strategies to guarantee continuous availability of our ecommerce platform.
• Data Integrity & Security Manage database security, user access, roles, and data encryption to protect sensitive customer and business information
• Collaboration Work closely with software engineers, data engineers, data scientists, product managers, and other stakeholders to understand business requirements and come up with effective, datadriven solutions.
• Automation Develop and maintain tools to automate routine database administrative tasks, improving efficiency and reducing manual effort.
• Troubleshooting Diagnose and resolve complex database issues in production and lower environments with a focus on minimizing downtime.
• Mentorship & Learning Participate in knowledge sharing, provide technical guidance to junior team members, and actively seek opportunities to learn new technologies and best practices
• On-Call Support Participate in on-call rotations to provide critical support for our 24/7 e-commerce operations.
• Documentation Create and maintain clear, concise documentation for database designs, configurations, operational procedures and tools.

Experience and Education:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field or equivalent practical experience
• 6+ years of hands-on experience as a Sr Database Engineer, SRE, Sr DBA, Systems Architect or a mix of these roles, preferably within a high-transaction environment with a focus on automation.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles and tools, specifically for database systems
• Must have Experience with Database Platform migrations( Eg: Relational <--> DocumentDB, Oracle <--> postgres, On-Prem <--> Cloud )
• Proficiency in writing and optimizing complex queries, stored procedures, and functions. Writing tools and utilities in Python, bash, powershell.
• Solid understanding of database design principles and data modeling for relational and document/NoSQL database systems.
• Experience with database performance tuning and optimization techniques, including indexing strategies and query plan analysis
• Familiarity with data governance concepts / data security best practices / data privacy regulations(GDPR, CCPA, etc)

Tech & Architecture Skills

• Strong expertise with relational database system (PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle)
• Working knowledge of NoSQL, Document Database systems (MongoDB, Redis, RavenDB, Memcache)
• Windows and Linux Systems
• Core networking and storage concepts
• Development experience with Python, cli/web/data frameworks
• Infrastructure (as code concepts, CI/CD pipelines with Gitlab/Github, Provisioning with Terraform/Ansible, Containers, Docker, Helm Charts, kubernetes)
• Familiarity with Systems architecture, Distributed computing architecture, BigData systems, Processes and toolsets

Soft Skills We Value:

• Problem Solving Analytical mind with the ability to diagnose complex issues and propose effective, sustainable solutions.
• Communication Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Collaboration A team player who thrives in a collaborative environment, enjoys sharing knowledge, and works effectively across departments.
• Adaptability Ability to quickly learn new technologies and adapt to evolving business needs and technology landscape.
• Proactiveness A self-starter who takes initiative, anticipates potential issues, and proposes improvements

The Perks:

• Flexible hours and hybrid remote working environment
• Subsidized in-office lunches
• Full benefits starting from your first day
• Paid Volunteer days, unlimited sick days, and 3% RRSP matching
• Lifestyle spending account
• Talent and development training budget
• Free Kobo device + free weekly e-book or audiobook
• Weekly Kobo Spark sessions
• Maternity/paternity leave top up
• Dog friendly office

About Rakuten Kobo Inc.
Owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten and headquartered in Toronto, Rakuten Kobo Inc. is one of the most advanced global e-commerce companies, with the world’s most innovative e-reading services offering more than 6 million eBooks and audiobooks to 30 million + customers in 190 countries. Kobo delivers the best digital reading experience through creative innovation, award-winning e-readers, and top-ranking mobile apps. Kobo is a part of the Rakuten group of companies.

Rakuten Kobo Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. Accessibility accommodations for candidates with disabilities participating in the selection process are available on request. Any information received related to accommodation needs of applicants will be addressed confidentially.

Rakuten Kobo would like to thank all applicants for their interest in this role however only qualified candidates will be shortlisted.

Beware of fraudulent job offers claiming to be from Rakuten. Rakuten does not send unsolicited job offers or request money during the recruitment process. Learn more:

#RKIND

Five Principles for Success
Our worldwide practices describe specific behaviors that make Rakuten unique and united across the world. We expect Rakuten employees to model these 5 Shugi Principles of Success.

Always improve, Always Advance - Only be satisfied with complete success - Kaizen
Passionately Professional - Take an uncompromising approach to your work and be determined to be the best
Hypothesize - Practice - Validate – Shikumika - Use the Rakuten Cycle to succeed in unknown territory
Maximize Customer Satisfaction - The greatest satisfaction for our teams is seeing their customers smile
Speed!! Speed!! Speed!! - Always be conscious of time - take charge, set clear goals, and engage your team

Rakuten is an equal opportunity employer. Accessibility accommodations for candidates with disabilities participating in the selection process are available on request. Any information received related to accommodation needs of applicants will be addressed confidentially.

Rakuten would like to thank all applicants for their interest in this role however only qualified candidates will be shortlisted.

Beware of fraudulent job offers claiming to be from Rakuten. Rakuten does not send unsolicited job offers or request money during the recruitment process. Learn more:

At the time of posting, Rakuten expects the Compensation (base salary + discretionary bonus) for this role to be within the range shown below. Individual compensation will vary based on job-related factors, including the skills, qualifications, and experience of the successful candidate as well as business need and geographic location. The successful applicant for this role will be eligible for stock options, health, vision, dental insurance, RRSP matching, Personal Time Off (PTO), Volunteer Time Off (VTO), and other employee benefits as the company implements.

CAD $92, - 142, annually