Senior Backend Software Engineer
•Hive.Co· 2d
💻 Engineering⏰ Full-time⭐ Senior📍 Toronto, Canada
2d ago
Ruby Labs·2 days ago
Ruby Labs is a leading tech company that creates and operates innovative consumer products. We offer a diverse range of opportunities across the health, education, and entertainment industries. Our innovative teams are driving the future of consumer-led products, and we're always looking for passionate individuals to join us. Learn more about our story at: https://rubylabs.com/about-us/
We are looking for a strong Database Engineer who will own, scale, and evolve our data infrastructure, ensuring it remains fast, reliable, and ready for long-term growth.
As a Database Engineer at RubyLabs, you will be responsible for designing, operating, and optimizing databases in a high-volume payments environment. This role goes far beyond basic CRUD operations — you will work with large datasets, complex queries, performance bottlenecks, migrations on massive tables, and analytics pipelines.
You will collaborate closely with backend engineers and product teams to ensure our data layer supports both transactional workloads and analytical use cases, including internal CRM search and observability.
You will be joining a high-talent, fully remote engineering organization with strong backend, infrastructure, and product teams. We value ownership, technical excellence, and pragmatic decision-making. Engineers at RubyLabs work on real scale, real money, and real impact.
Own and operate AWS Aurora (PostgreSQL) in a high-load production environment
Design and evolve schemas for large transactional domains (payments, customers, subscriptions, events)
Implement and maintain:
Table partitioning strategies (time-based, tenant-based, hybrid)
Advanced indexing (B-Tree, GIN, partial indexes)
Query optimization and execution-plan tuning
Handle databases with millions of new records per month while maintaining predictable performance
Analyze and optimize slow queries and production metrics
Identify and resolve:
Lock contention
Vacuum / autovacuum issues
Connection pool saturation
Long-running or inefficient queries
Proactively prevent performance regressions as data volume grows
Design high-performance search solutions for large operational datasets used in internal CRM tools
Implement efficient search strategies
Balance flexibility, correctness, and performance at scale
Work with event and log data pipelines, including Tinybird / ClickHouse-based analytics
Decide which data belongs in transactional databases vs analytical stores
Enable fast, real-time insights for product, finance, and operations teams
Ensure data integrity and consistency in financial workflows
Define and monitor database health metrics (latency, replication lag, storage, IOPS)
Plan and execute safe schema changes and migrations on large tables
Participate in incident analysis related to data performance or availability
Work in backups, replication, and disaster-recovery strategies
Strong hands-on experience with PostgreSQL in production
Experience managing large databases (hundreds of millions of rows or more)
Solid understanding of:
Indexing strategies
Query planners and execution paths
Transactions, isolation levels, and locking
Experience working with AWS-based infrastructure, ideally AWS Aurora
Ability to independently investigate and resolve complex performance issues
Experience in payments, billing, fintech, or financial systems
Familiarity with analytical databases (ClickHouse, Tinybird, or similar)
Experience designing data models for multi-tenant systems
Understanding of event-driven architectures and data pipelines
AWS certifications (e.g., Solutions Architect, Database Specialty)
You think in terms of scale, growth, and long-term impact
You care deeply about correctness, performance, and reliability
You’re proactive - you identify problems before they become incidents
You’re comfortable owning critical infrastructure components
You communicate clearly and collaborate effectively in a remote environment
Ruby Labs operates within the CET (Central European Time) zone. Applicants from any country are welcome to apply for the position as long as they are located within approximately ± 4 hours of CET. This ensures optimal collaboration and communication during working hours.
Discover the perks of being part of our vibrant team! We offer:
Remote Work Environment: Embrace the freedom to work from anywhere, anytime, promoting a healthy work-life balance.
Unlimited PTO: Enjoy unlimited paid time off to recharge and prioritize your well-being, without counting days.
Paid National Holidays: Celebrate and relax on national holidays with paid time off to unwind and recharge.
Company-provided MacBook: Experience seamless productivity with top-notch Apple MacBooks provided to all employees who need them.
Flexible Independent Contractor Agreement: Unlock the benefits of flexibility, autonomy, and entrepreneurial opportunities. Benefit from tax advantages, networking opportunities, reduced employment obligations, and the freedom to work from anywhere. Read more about it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tzxGX4Uu7Ts_HCLFXESKLnKaaBfVCPf1f9AYZPrkjJM/preview?tab=t.0
Be part of our fast-growing team and seize this excellent opportunity for personal and professional growth!
After submitting your application, we conduct a thorough review which typically takes 3 to 5 days, but may occasionally take longer due to the volume of applications received. If we see a potential fit, we proceed with the following steps:
Recruiter Screening (40 minutes)
Technical Interview (60 minutes)
Final Interview (30 minutes)
At Ruby Labs, we move fast, aim high, and expect the same from our team. We’re not here to play small—we’re here to build, grow, and win. That means we look for people who are ambitious, driven, and ready to give their best every single day.
This is a place for individuals who thrive under pressure, embrace challenges, and see opportunity in every obstacle. If you’re hungry to achieve, motivated by impact, and want to grow at the speed of your own ambition, Ruby Labs offers the platform to make it happen.
Here, effort is matched with reward. We recognize those who go all in and deliver results, and we create space for people who want more—more responsibility, more growth, and more success.
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