Database Administrator (DBA)

Database Administrator (DBA) We’re building the next generation of employee benefits infrastructure. At Happl, we help global teams design, manage, and scale benefits that actually work for their people by using AI, across flex allowances, benefits, insurance, recognition, and wellbeing, all in one intelligent platform. Happl is backed by leading investors such as YCombinator, 6Degrees Capital, and more, known for backing leading companies such as Deel, Rippling, Airbnb, Coinbase, Dropbox, and most recently was awarded a place in the UK’s top 100 startups for 2026. About the role As a Database Administrator at Happl, your mission is to design, manage, and scale the data infrastructure powering a global, AI-first benefits platform. You’ll own the reliability, performance, and integrity of our databases, ensuring our platform can scale securely as we grow globally. This role is critical to supporting payments, benefits, reporting, and real-time product experiences used by companies and employees worldwide. This is a hands-on role for someone who thrives in high-growth environments and wants ownership over core infrastructure that underpins the entire platform. What you’ll be doing You’ll work closely with Engineering, Product, and Customer Success teams to ensure our data layer is robust, scalable, and secure. Core responsibilities include: - Owning and managing production databases (primarily PostgreSQL) - Ensuring high availability, performance, and reliability of our database systems - Monitoring database health, performance, and capacity, proactively resolving issues - Optimising queries, indexes, and schema design to support product performance at scale - Implementing backup, recovery, and disaster recovery strategies - Designing and maintaining secure access controls and data protection measures - Supporting engineers with schema design, migrations, and query optimisation - Improving database observability, tooling, and operational workflows - Supporting integrations, reporting, and data pipelines across internal and external systems - Helping define best practices for data management as we scale globally You’ll play a key role in ensuring Happl’s platform remains fast, reliable, and scalable as we onboard more customers, features, and regions. What we’re looking for - 5+ years experience managing production databases as a DBA, Database Engineer, or Backend Engineer - Strong experience with PostgreSQL in production environments - Deep understanding of database performance tuning, indexing, and query optimisation - Experience with backups, replication, and disaster recovery strategies - Strong understanding of data integrity, security, and access control - Experience working with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or similar) - Comfortable supporting engineering teams and improving database architecture - Experience with monitoring and observability tools - Strong ownership mindset and ability to operate independently - Clear communicator who works well across engineering and product teams If you don’t meet every requirement but feel this role fits your trajectory, we’d still love to hear from you. Why join Happl - Help shape the future of employee benefits - Competitive base salary and commission - Meaningful equity in an early stage growing business - Flexible hybrid working from day one - Access to your own Happl benefits platform - Optional enrolment in Private Health Insurance - Optional enrolment in Dental insurance, including family cover - A flexible Wellbeing budget to spend on whatever wellbeing means to you - Learning & Development (L&D) allowance - Pension scheme from day one About the Interview - Call 1: 20-min Intro call with Ben (COO & CoS) - Call 2: 30-min deep dive with Lee (Head of Engineering) - Short Task - Call 3: 30-min deep dive with Ben T (CEO & Founder) Additional Details Location: London, Waterloo Team: Engineering Working arrangement: Hybrid (1+ Days ... (truncated, view full listing at source)