As a Senior Database Engineer at Zillow Group, you will shape the future of database services across our platform. You will own the design, provisioning, and lifecycle management of cloud-based transactional databases that support high-throughput services for millions of customers. This role is central to our shift toward greater automation, observability, and intelligent operations using infrastructure-as-code and AI-augmented tooling.
What You'll Do
- Own the full lifecycle of Aurora (PostgreSQL/MySQL) and SQL Server databases in AWS, from design and provisioning to monitoring, tuning, and retirement.
- Develop and maintain automation for provisioning, scaling, and managing databases using Terraform and Python/Bash scripting.
- Partner with developers and system engineers to support modern application patterns, including real-time replication, read replicas, CI/CD workflows, and temporary on-demand environments.
- Champion observability by integrating performance insights, slow query logs, and cost data into a centralized metrics and alerting framework.
- Contribute to and evolve our API-first database platform, exposing key database workflows through self-service portals and internal developer tooling.
- Participate in on-call rotations, incident response, and root cause analysis for critical production issues, owning outcomes and continuously improving reliability.
- Act as a mentor, technical resource, and collaborative partner to engineers across Zillow, helping to raise the bar in database operations and cloud-native design.
- Explore and pilot AI-powered agents and recommendations for query tuning, anomaly detection, cost optimization, and access governance.
What We're Looking For
- Deep expertise in at least one core database engine (PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQL Server).
- Hands-on experience in cloud-managed database services like AWS RDS and Aurora.
- A track record of building secure, resilient, and performant database infrastructure in production environments.
- Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code, ideally Terraform.
- Strong scripting skills (Python, Bash, PowerShell).
- Experience troubleshooting complex query performance, replication, or availability issues using native database tools and cloud metrics (e.g., CloudWatch, pg_stat_statements, Perf Insights).
- A customer-first mindset and clear communication skills.
- A bias for action, continuous improvement, and building systems that reduce friction and increase developer productivity.
Technical Stack
- AWS Aurora PostgreSQL
- AWS Aurora MySQL
- SQL Server
- AWS EC2
- Terraform
- Python
- Bash
- PowerShell
- AWS RDS
- CloudWatch
Team & Environment
You will be part of the Platform & Infrastructure Engineering (PIE) organization at Zillow.
Benefits & Compensation
- Eligible for equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location.
- Competitive base salary + equity.
Work Mode
This is a teleworker position open to candidates in Mexico.
Zillow Group is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment with the best employees. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, and gender identity.
