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MOTORS & Cazoo is the ultimate destination for car enthusiasts and buyers alike. As a leader in the market, we provide unparalleled search tools, expert car guides, insightful reviews, and a comprehensive vehicle price guide. Our mission is simple: to empower buyers to find their perfect car efficiently and with confidence, while helping automotive retailers reach millions of eager buyers.
At Motors & Cazoo you’ll be part of a team that is revolutionising how people buy and sell cars. Our innovative advertising opportunities extend across a vast dealer advertising ecosystem, including automotive giants such as eBay and Gumtree.
About the role
We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Database Engineer to develop and deliver on our Database Platform. You will modernise our heritage Microsoft SQL stack, expand into PostgreSQL and NoSQL, and build a platform that delivers fast and reliable data to the people who need it. You will collaborate closely with engineers, architects, and product owners on technical leadership, platform excellence, operational excellence, stakeholder communication, and strategic contribution.
Reports to: Head of Databases
Contract type: Permanent
Location: Remote (Hub in Richmond, SW London)
What you’ll do
Technical Leadership & Delivery
* Act as an individual lead contributor modernising and maintaining our Microsoft SQL‑based data platform.
* Architect, engineer, deploy and maintain highly scalable and available database solutions in Azure Cloud.
* Support migration from our heritage SQL VM estate into a modern Azure Cloud SQL‑based solution.
* Lead and consistently deliver on projects of high ambiguity, complexity and critical business impact.
* Be deployed to the highest priority business problems or critical incidents, rapidly resolving them and advising the business on prevention strategies.
* Design and implement database scaling strategies (horizontal and vertical) to support growing data volumes and high transaction throughput.
Platform Excellence & Innovation
* Maintain legacy systems at a high standard while driving short‑ to medium‑term improvements.
* Improve coding standards and best practices to deliver high‑quality code.
* Identify innovation opportunities in data tools and techniques, recognising appropriate timing for adoption.
* Design and manage data pipelines for operational data processing (ETL).
* Develop comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity plans for databases.
Operational Excellence
* Participate in a 24/7 on‑call rotation to provide customer support.
* Develop and support database automation, including maintenance, test data management, CI/CD pipelines and unit tests.
* Monitor database performance, implement changes and apply new patches and versions when required.
* Coordinate teams to resolve problems and implement preventative measures.
* Automate database maintenance tasks including backups, patching, and health checks.
* Define and implement database scaling strategies in distributed environments.
Stakeholder Management & Communication
* Manage communication between technical and non‑technical stakeholders effectively.
* Clearly articulate risk of technical problems to non‑technical stakeholders (e.g., product, legal, compliance).
* Represent the company to external stakeholders (auditors, regulators, third‑parties, vendors) when appropriate.
* Liaise with product managers, product owners and engineering managers across multiple squads to ensure timely delivery.
* Link technical contributions back to business impact for your team or area, helping others buy into this vision.
* Proactively contribute to the betterment of other engineers through sponsoring, mentoring and providing constructive, candid feedback.
* Enable others to improve coding standards and awareness of best practices around non‑functional requirements.
* Be a trusted advisor for engineers from different squads or tribes.
* Contribute through knowledge sharing and architectural forums.
Strategic Contribution
* Actively propose well‑considered contributions to the roadmap of your team or business area.
* Demonstrate product‑awareness and contribute valuable input to quarterly planning rituals.
* Work with PM or tech lead to set the vision for your squad.
* Foster effective collaboration between Product and Engineering.
* Ensure your squad focuses on work that drives forward quarterly goals while reducing operational impact.
* Stay up to date with technology trends and contribute thoughts to squad strategy.
Essential Experience – Database Expertise
* Advanced knowledge of database architecture, design and administration, including backups, maintenance, performance monitoring, patching and troubleshooting.
* Deep expertise in disaster recovery and business continuity planning for databases.
* Performance optimisation expertise, including query tuning, analysing metrics and reducing deadlocks/timeouts.
* Proficiency in automation of database maintenance tasks using PowerShell or Python.
* Ability to define and implement database scaling strategies.
Leadership & Impact
* Experience as a technical thought leader with a proven impact on company trajectory.
* Reliable, collaborative subject‑matter expert in key areasli>
* Coaching and mentoring junior engineers.
* Track record of preventing problems before they occur.
* Providing technical and strategic feedback that leads to better outcomes.
Technical Stack
* Migrating MS SQL on‑premise solutions to cloud‑native Azure databases.
* Data engineering, data lake/warehousing or BI solutions with several years in Azure cloud.
* Successful integration of business‑critical data from different sources.
Extensive and Proven Experience In
* Always On availability groups and failover cluster instances.
* Database CI/CD (preferably YAML pipelines in Azure DevOps).
* PowerShell/Python.
* NoSQL database technologies.
* Advanced caching strategies (Redis, Memcached).
* Microsoft Power BI.
* Redgate SQL Monitor or similar SQL monitoring tools.
* GDPR workflows (SAR and DDR).
What success looks like
In this role you will lead and deliver projects of high complexity and critical business impact. You will be known as the go‑to expert for quickly resolving critical issues while helping the business understand prevention strategies. Your technical contributions will clearly link back to business impact and help shape the technical strategy of your area while driving the next generation of database engineers.
Benefits
* Competitive pay.
* Discretionary bonus.
* Pension scheme (up to 9% employer contribution).
* Employee recognition scheme with great financial prizes.
* 25 days holiday per year, growing with length of service.
* Hybrid and UK remote working (depending on role).
* Generous family‑friendly leave.
* Free counselling and support (for when you might need it).
* Online private GP service.
* Life assurance policy (x4 Life Assurance).
Other 🔍
* Social & inclusion calendar – packed with events.
* Free food and beverage in our office locations.
Diversity & Inclusion at Motors
Here at Motors we are on a mission to create a culture where all our teams are inspired to share their passion, talents and ideas with equal opportunities for growth and career development throughout both of our brands. We know that a diverse and inclusive team drives creativity and makes our brands stronger. We’re committed to discovering new talent and employing people who reflect the nature of the society around us. When you join Motors you can be you!
Seniority level
Mid‑Senior level
Employment type
Full‑time
Job function
Engineering and Information Technology
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