Senior Associate - Database Engineer at New York Life… · Remote

Location Designation: Hybrid - 3 days per quarter

Technology, Data, AI and Ventures:

Within the Tech, Data, AI, Ventures (TDAV) organization, our work is guided by a shared vision: deploying the power of technology, data, AI and ventures to accelerate sustainable competitive advantage for New York Life's businesses. We build solutions that power how we serve policy owners, agents, advisors and employees while delivering measurable business outcomes.

Across technology, data, AI, cyber, product, digital experience, architecture and infrastructure, TDAV combines the scale and investment of an industry leader, access to leading-edge technologies and the opportunity to help shape how a world-class financial services company competes in the AI era - all backed by the stability and purpose of a mutual company built to last.

Role Summary

Serve as a senior engineering owner for New York Life's enterprise database platforms across Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, AWS database services, and approved relational or object database technologies. You will engineer, operate, harden, automate, and modernize database services supporting critical business workloads across private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid environments. Your work will improve availability, recoverability, performance, security, and operational consistency while reducing manual effort and platform risk.

What You'll Do

Run & Harden Database Platforms

• Operate and maintain enterprise database platforms and supporting tooling across development, test, and production environments.

• Implement upgrades, patches, configuration changes, and lifecycle activities in line with engineering standards, maintenance plans, and change governance.

• Maintain platform capacity, performance, availability, and supportability so database services remain stable and production-ready.

Engineer Availability, Recovery & Resilience

• Design and implement clustering, replication, failover, backup, restore, and disaster-recovery patterns for mission-critical database services.

• Test recovery procedures and validate recovery time and recovery point objectives through scheduled exercises and evidence-based reporting.

• Reduce single points of failure and configuration drift through standardized architecture, resilient patterns, and repeatable health checks.

Automate & Standardize

• Develop reusable automation for provisioning, configuration, patching, backup validation, monitoring, maintenance, and routine database administration.

• Manage database configurations and deployment patterns through version control, infrastructure as code, and CI/CD-based promotion where appropriate.

• Define standard builds, templates, runbooks, and self-service capabilities that reduce manual effort and improve delivery consistency.

Performance, Capacity & Lifecycle Management

• Analyze and tune database performance, resource utilization, storage, indexing, queries, and configuration to meet workload requirements.

• Forecast capacity and identify scaling, consolidation, migration, and rationalization opportunities before service constraints emerge.

• Drive version currency, technology refresh, decommissioning, and migration activities that reduce technical debt and unsupported-platform risk.

Security, Risk & Control Integration

• Apply secure configuration baselines, privileged-access controls, encryption, secrets practices, logging, and vulnerability-remediation standards.

• Support audit evidence, access reviews, segregation of duties, data-retention requirements, and remediation of control findings.

• Partner with cybersecurity and risk teams to assess database exposures and implement durable corrective actions.

Observability, Change & Incident Excellence

• Integrate database platforms with enterprise monitoring, logging, telemetry, alerting, and dashboards to improve service visibility.

• Coordinate database maintenance, releases, and changes with application teams and established change-management processes.

• Lead incident triage, performance diagnosis, root-cause analysis, and corrective action for database service disruptions and recurring issues.

Partner & Influence Across Teams

• Collaborate with application owners, developers, data teams, SRE, cloud, storage, network, cybersecurity, architecture, and vendors to keep database services healthy and compliant.

• Provide guidance on schema and workload readiness, database design considerations, deployment patterns, performance, resilience, and recovery.

• Document standards, playbooks, and engineering patterns; mentor peers and junior engineers and contribute to platform roadmaps.

Qualifications

• 7-10+ years of experience in database engineering, database administration, platform engineering, SRE, or production operations supporting mission-critical data services.

• Hands-on experience with two or more enterprise database technologies or service models, including:

  • Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, approved object databases, or comparable enterprise relational database platforms.

  • AWS database services such as Amazon RDS or Aurora, or comparable managed database services in a public cloud environment.

• Strong scripting and automation skills in PowerShell, Bash, Python, or database-native tooling, plus familiarity with YAML/JSON and REST APIs.

• Experience with Git-based workflows, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, configuration management, and automated database promotion practices.

• Proven experience with backup and recovery, replication, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, capacity planning, patching, and lifecycle management.

• Strong understanding of database security, privileged access, encryption, vulnerability remediation, logging, audit evidence, and compliance requirements.

• Excellent coordination skills across incident, problem, release, and change processes, with clear communication to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Nice to Have

• Experience in financial services, insurance, or another highly regulated industry.

• Experience with PostgreSQL, MySQL, private cloud, or modern database platform-engineering and SRE models.

• Relevant AWS, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, ITIL, SRE, or cybersecurity certifications.

How Success Will Be Measured

• Improved database availability, recovery readiness, performance, and mean time to restore service; fewer recurring incidents and capacity-related events.

• Increased percentage of provisioning, patching, monitoring, backup validation, and routine administration executed through automation.

• Improved version and patch currency, vulnerability-remediation timeliness, configuration consistency, and completeness of audit and recovery evidence.

• Reduced manual interventions and alert noise, with greater adoption of standard patterns, dashboards, runbooks, and approved cloud database services.

Working Model

Hybrid role based in New York, NY with periodic on-site participation for planning, releases, incident reviews, and recovery exercises. On-call or off-hours support is expected for critical events. You will work across teams to keep database services secure, reliable, performant, recoverable, and audit-ready.

Job Level: LEVELPF4

Pay Transparency

Salary Range: $124,000-$177,000

Overtime eligible: Exempt

Discretionary bonus eligible: Yes

Sales bonus eligible: No

Actual base salary will be determined based on several factors but not limited to individual’s experience, skills, qualifications, and job location. Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition to base salary, employees may also be eligible to participate in an incentive program.

Company Overview

At New York Life, our 180-year legacy of purpose and integrity fuels our future. As we evolve into a more technology-, data-, and AI-enabled organization, we remain grounded in the values that drive lasting impact.

Our diverse business portfolio creates opportunities to make a difference across industries and communities—inviting bold thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and purpose-driven innovation. Here, you’ll find the rare balance of long-standing stability and forward momentum, supported by an inclusive team that honors tradition while embracing progress.

As a Fortune 100 mutual company, we offer a place to grow your skills, contribute to meaningful work, and deliver solutions that matter. Your ideas drive what’s next, and your growth powers it.

Our Benefits

We provide a full package of benefits for employees – and have unique offerings for a modern workforce, including leave programs, adoption assistance, and student loan repayment programs. Based on feedback from our employees, we continue to refine and add benefits to our offering, so that you can flourish both inside and outside of work. Click here to discover more about our comprehensive benefit options or visit our NYL Benefits Site.

Our Commitment to Inclusion

At New York Life, fostering an inclusive workplace is fundamental to who we are and how we serve our communities. We have a longstanding commitment to creating an environment where individuals can contribute their best and succeed together. This foundation is rooted in our core values of humanity and integrity, ensuring that every employee feels valued and supported. By embracing a broad range of perspectives and experiences, we achieve greater success and fulfill our promise of providing financial security and peace of mind to families across all communities. Click here to learn more about New York Life’s leadership in this space.​

Recognized as one of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies, New York Life is committed to improving local communities through a culture of employee giving and volunteerism, supported by the Foundation. We're proud that due to our mutuality, we operate in the best interests of our policy owners. To learn more about career opportunities at New York Life, please visit the Careers page of www.NewYorkLife.com.

Job Requisition ID: 95386