Senior Database Engineer, Turnitin
Plagiarism detection software
Be an early applicant
Plagiarism detection software
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
501-1000 employees
Company mission
Turnitin's mission is to ensure the integrity of global education and meaningfully improve learning outcomes.
Role
Who you are
- Established senior-level experience (8+ years) in production database engineering/administration, with deep hands-on expertise in PostgreSQL
- Demonstrated ability to operate autonomously: independently identify priorities, drive complex work to completion, and act as an escalation point for database-related incidents with minimal oversight
- Strong PostgreSQL expertise, including performance tuning and troubleshooting using execution plans, indexing strategy, concurrency/locking concepts, and database statistics
- Strong AWS database experience with Aurora PostgreSQL/RDS, including high availability design, backups/snapshots, point-in-time recovery, and IAM-based access patterns
- Proven experience implementing and operating connection pooling/connection management in production using PgBouncer and/or RDS Proxy
- Experience designing and testing backup/restore and disaster recovery processes, with a practical understanding of RPO/RTO and restore validation
- Hands-on Infrastructure as Code experience for database platforms, specifically Terraform (modules, state management, safe change control)
- Demonstrated observability experience using Prometheus and Grafana, including building actionable dashboards and reducing alert noise
- Experience operating at least one non-relational data store in production (e.g., Redis and/or DynamoDB) as part of a broader platform
- Strong Linux fundamentals relevant to database operations (system performance, storage, troubleshooting)
- Proficiency in scripting/automation using Python and/or other languages to reduce manual work and improve operational consistency
- Strong written communication skills, including the ability to produce clear runbooks, change plans, and incident summaries for a global audience
- Comfort collaborating asynchronously across time zones and working in a fast-changing environment with frequent production changes
- At Turnitin, we recognize it’s unrealistic for candidates to fulfill 100% of the criteria in a job ad. We encourage you to apply if you meet the majority of the requirements because we know that skills evolve over time
What the job involves
- We are seeking a Senior Database Engineer with deep expertise in PostgreSQL and AWS Aurora to join our global infrastructure team
- You will own the reliability, performance, and scalability of the database platforms that support Turnitin’s educational technology services
- This role combines strategic project delivery with hands-on operational support in a fast-moving, highly available production environment
- The successful candidate operates with a high degree of autonomy, drives work to completion with minimal oversight, and collaborates effectively with teammates across multiple time zones
- Own the reliability, performance, and day-to-day operation of production database platforms, balancing project delivery with operational support
- Design and evolve highly available database architectures in AWS to meet uptime, latency, scalability, and recoverability goals
- Lead database lifecycle activities, including provisioning, upgrades, migrations, backup/restore processes, and disaster recovery readiness
- Drive performance improvements by investigating production issues, identifying root causes, and implementing durable solutions in partnership with application and infrastructure teams
- Establish and maintain operational excellence: monitoring, alerting, runbooks, documentation, and incident response practices
- Define and enforce database security standards, access controls, and auditing aligned with internal policies and compliance requirements
- Automate repeatable operational tasks and standardize infrastructure delivery using Infrastructure as Code and scripting
- Perform capacity planning and cost optimization; provide recommendations based on observed workload trends and business growth
- Participate in an on-call rotation and lead/participate in post-incident reviews to prevent recurrence
- Collaborate with a globally distributed team, including regular attendance at meetings multiple times per week within the 16:00–19:00 GMT time range
Our take
Turnitin has a global reputation for being one of the best plagiarism detection softwares on the market. It’s well-earned, too. Besides simple paraphrasing plagiarism, its software also employs sophisticated techniques like identifying macro replacement and analysing metadata to weed out essay mill papers.
Academic plagiarism has become increasingly complex over the years, exacerbated in part by the COVID period of online schooling, and in part by a skyrocketing rise in computer literacy and plagiarism tricks. Software like Turnitin is therefore playing an increasingly crucial role in maintaining academic integrity. Additionally, it helps understaffed institutions ease the burden placed on a teaching workforce which are, in some regions, perilously close to collapse.
Turnitin is not without its issues, however. Some institutions lean too heavily on the software, and essay mills have begun using Turnitin software to prove product authenticity. Historically, Turnitin has neatly addressed these problems by releasing new or improved capabilities including Chat GPT screening updates in 2023. If it can continue to demonstrate remarkable competence and proactive development in this regard, Turnitin’s glowing reputation seems assured.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
9% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company benefits
- Health Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Disability Insurance
- Life Insurance
- Vision Insurance
- Accidental Death & Dismemberment Insurance
- Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
- Health Savings Account (HSA)
- Supplemental Life Insurance
Company HQ
Downtown, Oakland, CA
Leadership
Chris Caren
(CEO)Held a number of senior positions at major corporations, including serving as a GM at Microsoft, and a board member at Avetta, Liaison International, Illuminate Education, and The IRONMAN Group. They are additionally a member of YPO and chairman of Procare Solutions.
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