Engineering Lead - Database Reliability

Engineering Lead - Data Reliability - London
Wise is one the fastest growing companies in Europe and we're on a mission: to make money without borders the new normal. We've got 15 million customers across the globe and we're growing. Fast.
Current banking systems don't let us send, spend or receive money across borders easily. Or quickly. Or cheaply.
So, we're building a new one.
Enter: our Database Reliability Engineering team!
For our customers, using Wise is as simple as sending money from A to B. Yet behind our app and website is a complex engine of currencies, routes, products and features, generating terabytes of data each day. Database Reliability Engineering is at the core that provides databases as service for the rest of the business, managing our vast estate of database technologies and solutions. As an Engineering Lead in the wider Platform tribe and Engineering organization, you will have an opportunity to directly affect database technologies and automation strategy, scalability and reliability, building production systems that are ultimately making things better for all customers.
Here's how you'll be contributing to the team

• You will be responsible for the well-being of the team, coaching, mentoring and growing a high-performing team in bringing value by working on high-impact solutions.
• You will support the team with occasional hands-on involvement as a software engineer and systems operator, bringing senior engineering expertise into building solutions.
• You'll be collaborating with other leads, engineers, product managers in the wider organization.
• Exactly what you'll be doing day to day will vary, as our team looks at the big picture challenges we see across all of analytics, engineering and business!

Is this you?
These (and feeling comfortable with the above points) are the only must-have ones for this role - everything else is flexible!

• You are a problem solver, and are able to take ownership to deliver iterable solutions in a collaborative and open way, using agile and traditional project management techniques.
• You're good at communicating, comfortable engaging with other teams to get things done, and willing to present to the wider organization occasionally.
• You have good leadership qualities and experience in leading data or engineering teams.
• You're comfortable taking ownership of vendor negotiations and explaining costs to the business.

Technical Specifics

• You have a senior engineering background in Python, Golang or Java ecosystems, having high coding standards, understanding of system design and engineering principles.
• You have experience in operating with services provided by cloudservice providers such as (preferably) AWS or GCP.
• You have deep technical and up-to-date domain expertise with database technologies such as MySQL or PostgreSQL and/or distributed databases such as TiDB or Vitess, automation and self service around it.

Nice to Have

• Passionate about technology and its relationship with product and user experience.
• You are a security and privacy advocate, understanding concepts such as principle of least privilege, and are able to apply basic security principles at infrastructure and application level.
• Experience with configuration management (Ansible, Packer), CI/CD (GitHub Actions), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), containers (Docker), container and job orchestration (Kubernetes), development of web services and APIs.
• Customer is at the heart of everything you do and this empathy drives all decisions you make.
• Ability to articulate complex and technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
• Knowledge/interest in payment platforms, foreign exchange & highly complex systems.
• Be a customer of Wise.

Interested? Find out more:

• How we work - a practical guide
• TransferWise Vlogs: Omar, Engineering Lead
• Engineering team blog
• Scaling our Infrastructure: how we make it work

What do we offer:

• Starting salary: 95,000-130,000 + RSU
• Company Restricted Stock Units
• Numerous great benefits in our London office

Key benefits:

• Flexible working - whether it's working from home, school plays or life admin we get that flexibility is essential and you're trusted to do the right thing and be responsible
• Paid annual holiday, sick days, parental leave and other leave opportunities
• 6 weeks of paid sabbatical after 4 years at Wise on top of annual leave

Salary (annual)
95,000 - 130,000 GBP
We're people without borders - without judgement or prejudice, too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse, equitable and inclusive. We're proud to have a truly international team, and we celebrate our differences.
Every Wiser should feel that they can be themselves at work. Inclusive teams help us live our values and make sure every Wiser feels respected, empowered to share their contributions towards mission zero and able to progress in their careers.
Having diverse teams that reflect our diverse customer base helps us build a better product. We can be more creative and empathetic to our customer's needs and life experiences and makes sure we leave no-one behind on our journey to mission-zero.
If you want to find out more about what it's like to work at Wise visit Wise.Jobs .
Keep up to date with life at Wise by following us on LinkedIn and Instagram .