Henry Schein

Senior Database Engineer

Albany, North Shore - New Zealand Full time

Who we are

Henry Schein One provides advanced, market-leading software solutions that help dental teams manage their practice effectively so that they can focus on delivering the best possible care to their patients.

What you’ll be doing

  • Server and Cluster Operations

    • Manage RDS parameter groups, option groups, and cluster settings.

    • Monitor system metrics (CPU, memory, disk, network, IOPS, replication lag).

    • Configure and validate backups, snapshots, PITR, and cross-region disaster recovery.

    • Oversee patching and minor version upgrades, including rollback plans.

    • Maintain replication slots, subscriptions, and logical/physical replication health.

    • Control instance class sizing and Aurora Serverless v2 scaling policies.

  • Query Performance and Optimization

    • Collect and analyze pg_stat_statements and Performance Insights.

    • Monitor query latency, CPU waits, lock contention, and replication slot usage.

    • Identify slow queries, missing indexes, and inefficient joins.

    • Tune parameters (work_mem, shared_buffers, effective_cache_size, autovacuum settings).

    • Recommend and apply indexing strategies (B-tree, GIN, BRIN).

    • Validate query plans using EXPLAIN/EXPLAIN ANALYZE.

  • Maintenance

    • Schedule and monitor autovacuum and analyze processes.

    • Rebuild or reindex bloated indexes.

    • Detect table/index bloat with pgstattuple or pg_class stats.

    • Update statistics proactively to prevent plan regressions.

    • Clean up orphaned replication slots, temp tables, and unused schemas.

  • Application and Proxying Layers

    • Operate RDS Proxy or Heimdall/RDS Proxy alternatives for connection pooling.

    • Validate application prepared statements usage and prevent plan cache flooding.

    • Manage query routing for read replicas (Aurora reader endpoints).

    • Monitor transaction pool health and idle connection behavior.

  • Performance Tuning

    • Optimize schema design for multi-tenant workloads (partitioning, indexing, foreign keys).

    • Minimize impact of bulk loads (disable triggers/constraints, drop/rebuild indexes).

    • Monitor Aurora storage I/O metrics (DataFileRead, commit latency).

    • Benchmark workload changes before and after application releases.

  • Observability

    • Integrate CloudWatch metrics, alarms, and enhanced monitoring.

    • Use Performance Insights and pg_stat_activity for active monitoring.

    • Track query execution trends and resource consumption.

What you’ll be working on

  • Migration to our modern technology stack

Your technical skills

  • 5+ years hands-on experience in PostgreSQL performance tuning and query plan analysis

  • 5+ years hands-on experience in RDS/Aurora administration and scaling in AWS.

  • Index and statistics management (vacuum, analyze, reindex, parameter group settings, etc.)

  • Connection pooling, proxying queries, and result caching (e.g. Heimdall, RDS Proxy)

  • Backup, recovery, and replication (CDC) strategies in managed environments

  • SQL development, optimization, and schema design for high-volume workloads

  • Experience with both OLTP and OLAP architectures

  • Hands-on experience with observability and monitoring tools:

    • PostgreSQL: pg_stat_statements, pg_stat_activity, EXPLAIN ANALYZE

    • AWS CloudWatch for Aurora PostgreSQL monitoring

    • Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tools like Dynatrace, Splunk, SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer (DPA)

  • Experience with rigorous change control process

Your personal attributes

  • You take ownership and get things done, driving projects with a bias for action and a commitment to delivering value incrementally.

  • You learn rapidly from setbacks and adapt your approach to continuously improve.

  • You transform ambiguous problems and abstract ideas — not rigid specifications — into delightful, high-quality, and remarkably simple solutions. You are driven by true craftsmanship, creativity, and a relentless pursuit of excellence in everything you build.

  • You possess a genuine passion for continuous learning and self-improvement. You actively seek and value diverse perspectives, recognizing the limitations of your own viewpoint.

  • You champion a "One Team" philosophy, effective in working with multiple teams towards shared goals. You believe in transparent collaboration, actively engaging with the team through huddles, interactive reviews, and whiteboarding.

  • You have strong opinions, loosely held — you thrive in technical discussions, confidently propose and debate ideas, and drive well-reasoned solutions to help the team achieve the best outcomes. You're not one to just go with the flow; you help drive us forward.

  • You are self-motivated, consistently seeking opportunities to contribute more, and take on greater responsibilities to propel the team forward.

  • You demonstrate strong interpersonal awareness, understanding team dynamics and the impact of your interactions.