Senior Database Administrator London

Internal Job Level: Associate Director

Reports to: Principal SysAdmin Manager

Job Overview

Aquis Exchange is seeking a Database Administrator (DBA) to join our Infrastructure team and take ownership of our database estate. This is a hands on technical role covering day to day administration, reliability, design and support across a varied stack that includes MySQL, Redis, QuestDB (a high performance time series database used for market data and operational metrics), Dolt (a version controlled, Git for data SQL database), and Elasticsearch. The successful candidate will be comfortable with mature relational database tooling and open to learning newer, specialist technologies.

The role provides critical support to our Engineering and Operations teams, who rely on performant, well managed databases to deliver and operate our exchange technology products.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Primary resource responsible to administer, monitor, and maintain the Aquis database estate, ensuring high availability, performance, and reliability.
• Plan and execute database upgrades, patch management, and version migrations with minimal disruption to production systems.
• Design, implement, and routinely test backup and restore procedures, ensuring recovery objectives (RPO/RTO) are documented and met.
• Monitor database health, capacity, and performance; identify and resolve bottlenecks proactively before they impact services.
• Review and advise on proposed schema changes, working with developers to ensure changes are safe, performant, and aligned with best practices before deployment.
• Support developers and operations staff with query optimisation, index design, and database access patterns.
• Act as the primary point of escalation for database-related issues raised by the Engineering and Operations teams.
• Collaborate with developers on integration between application code and database layers, assisting with connectivity, driver configuration, and troubleshooting.
• Write and optimise SQL queries for use in Grafana dashboards and reporting front ends, surfacing operational and business metrics from QuestDB and MySQL.
• Work with the Engineering team to ensure database metrics and logs are integrated into Aquis monitoring and alerting infrastructure.
• Manage database user accounts, roles, and permissions in line with the principle of least privilege.
• Ensure database configurations comply with internal security policies

Required Skills and Experience

• Proven hands on experience as a DBA or in a database focused infrastructure/engineering role, ideally in a fast paced, production environment.
• Strong working knowledge of MySQL, including installation, configuration, replication, performance tuning, and user management.
• Hands on experience with QuestDB is strongly preferred, however candidates with a solid PostgreSQL background and an interest in high performance time series workloads are encouraged to apply since QuestDB uses the PostgreSQL wire protocol for queries.
• Strong working knowledge of PostgreSQL, including query planning, indexing strategies, roles, and connection management.
• Practical experience with backup and restore strategies across both MySQL and PostgreSQL environments, including point in time recovery.
• Solid understanding of relational database concepts: normalisation, indexing, query execution plans, transactions, and locking.
• Ability to write complex SQL queries, both for operational and reporting purposes.
• Experience writing and integrating database queries with Grafana or similar observability and dashboarding tools is desirable.
• Experience with or interest in version controlled or branching database systems (e.g. Dolt).
• Familiarity with Redis and Elasticsearch administration is advantageous.
• Comfortable working in a Linux based server environment and with command line tooling.
• Experience in a regulated financial services or compliance driven environment is advantageous, with an understanding of audit and change control requirements.
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills, with a methodical approach to diagnosing and resolving incidents.
• Excellent communication skills-able to translate database concepts clearly for non specialist colleagues in development and operations teams.
• Self motivated and capable of managing competing priorities in a dynamic, high throughput environment.

About Aquis Exchange

Aquis Exchange ("Aquis") is Europe's challenger exchange, creating better markets for a modern economy. Aquis has market leading technology and innovative rules for trading, and offers primary listings and secondary trading of equities, along with global licensing of proprietary technology.

Aquis Markets

Operates lit and dark order books, covering 16 European markets. For its lit books, Aquis uses a subscription pricing model which works by charging users according to the message traffic they generate, rather than a percentage of the value of each stock that they trade.

Aquis Technologies

Is the software and technology division of Aquis. It focuses on building better markets via the creation and licensing of cutting edge, cost effective exchange infrastructure technology and services, including matching engine and trade surveillance solutions.

Aquis Stock Exchange

("AQSE") is a stock market providing primary and secondary markets for equity securities . It is authorised as a Recognised Investment Exchange, which allows it to operate a regulated listings venue. The AQSE Growth Market is divided into two segments 'Access' and 'Apex'; the Access market focuses on earlier stage growth companies, while Apex is the intended market for larger, more established businesses.

Aquis Data

Generates revenue from the sale of data derived from Aquis Markets and Aquis Stock Exchange to non Member market participants.

Aquis is authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and France's Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution and L'Autorité des marchés financiers to operate Multilateral Trading Facility businesses in the UK & Switzerland markets and in EU27 markets, respectively.

Aquis is part of SIX: the provider and operator of stable and efficient infrastructure for the Swiss and Spanish financial centres. For more information, please go to .

Our Culture

At Aquis, we're proud of our culture - one built on trust, collaboration, and accountability. We work fast, support one another, and share responsibility for both our successes and our lessons learned.

Our values guide how we work every day:

Win as One- We collaborate, share knowledge, and celebrate collective success.

Disrupt Positively - We challenge the status quo and look for smarter, better ways to do things.

Find Joy - We take pride in our work and enjoy what we do, even when it's challenging.

Act with Honour - We do the right thing, with integrity and respect for others.

You'll join a supportive, ambitious, and diverse team where ideas are encouraged and innovation is part of our DNA. We recruit talented people from all walks of life and empower them to make an impact. If our values resonate with you, Aquis could be the ideal place to grow your career.

The statements included in this job description are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this job. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required.

Equal opportunities at Aquis Exchange.

We are an equal opportunities employer. All applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, gender, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status.