Director - Database Engineering & Operations

About HighLevel

HighLevel is an AI-powered, all-in-one white-label sales & marketing platform that empowers agencies, entrepreneurs, and businesses to elevate their digital presence and drive growth. We are proud to support a global and growing community of over 2 million businesses, comprised of agencies, consultants, and businesses of all sizes and industries. HighLevel empowers users with all the tools needed to capture, nurture, and close new leads into repeat customers. As of mid 2025, HighLevel processes over 4 billion API hits and handles more than 2.5 billion message events every day. Our platform manages over 470 terabytes of data distributed across five databases, operates with a network of over 250 microservices, and supports over 1 million hostnames.

With over 1,500 team members across 15+ countries, we operate in a global, remote-first environment. We are building more than software; we are building a global community rooted in creativity, collaboration, and impact. We take pride in cultivating a culture where innovation thrives, ideas are celebrated, and people come first, no matter where they call home.

As of mid 2025, our platform powers over 1.5 billion messages, helps generate over 200 million leads, and facilitates over 20 million conversations for the more than 2 million businesses we serve each month. Behind those numbers are real people growing their companies, connecting with customers, and making their mark - and we get to help make that happen.

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced and technically strong Director - Database Engineering & Operations to lead HighLevel’s data platforms and data operations at scale. This role owns the architecture, reliability, scalability, and operational excellence of HighLevel’s data infrastructure.

You will lead multiple teams responsible for core datastores, data reliability engineering (DRE), backups, disaster recovery, and governance, while partnering closely with Cloud Infrastructure, SRE, Security, and Product Engineering. Our infrastructure platform underpins every customer interaction and must operate with high reliability, security, and efficiency.

Responsibilities

Leadership & Management

• Lead, mentor, and scale Data Engineering and Data Reliability Engineering (DRE) teams.
• Establish clear ownership, operating models, and accountability across data platforms and operations.
• Conduct regular one-on-ones, performance reviews, and career development for senior engineers and leads.
• Build a strong culture of operational ownership, reliability, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure data platform costs are predictable, optimized, and scale efficiently with business growth.

Data Platforms

• Own and evolve core data platforms including: MongoDB Atlas, ClickHouse, Firestore, AlloyDB/Cloud-native relational databases, Caching systems (Redis/Memorystore).
• Drive architectural decisions for scalability, performance, and multi-tenant workloads.
• Lead data platform upgrades, migrations, and long-term strategy.

Data Operations & Reliability

• Own backup, restore, and disaster recovery for all critical data systems.
• Define and enforce RTO / RPO standards.
• Lead data incident response and post-incident remediation.
• Ensure regular DR drills, restore testing, and operational readiness.
• Reduce operational risk through automation and standardization.

Governance & Compliance

• Establish and enforce schema change governance and data change controls.
• Partner with Security, SRE, and Governance teams on: Audit evidence and traceability; Risk management and controls.
• Act as the executive owner for data-related audit and compliance topics.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Cloud Infrastructure & SRE on runtime reliability.
• Partner with Security on data protection and access controls.
• Partner with Product Engineering on data access patterns and scaling needs.
• Communicate clearly with executive leadership on risks, tradeoffs, and roadmap.

Quality & Performance

• Establish high standards for data availability, durability, and performance.
• Define and track KPIs related to: Data reliability, Incident frequency and MTTR & Recovery readiness.
• Drive continuous improvement across platforms and operations.

Cost Optimization & Efficiency

• Own cost efficiency and optimization across all data platforms, including MongoDB Atlas, ClickHouse, Firestore, AlloyDB, and caching systems.
• Monitor data platform spend and growth trends.
• Identify cost drivers and inefficiencies.
• Implement right-sizing, tiering, and lifecycle strategies.
• Balance performance, reliability, and cost when making architectural and operational decisions.
• Establish cost-related KPIs and regularly report on optimization initiatives and savings.
• Ensure data platform cost scales predictably with customer and usage growth.

Budget & Resource Management

• Own planning and prioritization for data infrastructure investments.
• Partner with leadership on headcount planning and hiring.
• Ensure efficient use of cloud and data platform resources.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Engineering or related field.
• 12+ years of engineering experience with significant focus on data platforms.
• Prior experience leading data infrastructure or database teams at scale.
• Experience with MongoDB (Atlas preferred), ClickHouse or similar analytical databases.
• Postgres/AlloyDB or cloud-native relational databases.
• Proven experience owning production data operations, incidents, and audits.
• Strong leadership and communication skills, including executive-level discussions.

Nice to Have

• Experience in high-growth SaaS environments.
• GCP-based data platform experience.
• Experience building or leading Data Reliability Engineering (DRE) teams.

Key skills/competency

• Data Platform Leadership
• Database Engineering
• Cloud Infrastructure
• Data Reliability Engineering (DRE)
• MongoDB Atlas
• ClickHouse
• AlloyDB/Postgres
• Disaster Recovery (DR)
• Cost Optimization
• Data Governance