Principal Database Platform Engineer

At T. Rowe Price, we identify and actively invest in opportunities to help people thrive in an evolving world. As a premier global asset management organization with more than 85 years of experience, we provide investment solutions and a broad range of equity, fixed income, and multi-asset capabilities to individuals, advisors, institutions, and retirement plan sponsors. We take an active, independent approach to investing, offering our dynamic perspective and meaningful partnership so our clients can feel more confident. 

We believe doing the right thing for our clients and our associates is good business. With a career at the firm, you can expect opportunities to create real impact at work and in your community. You’ll enjoy resources to support your career path, as well as compensation, benefits, and flexibility to enrich your life. Here, you’ll find a collaborative culture that respects and values differences and colleagues who share a spirit of generosity.  

Join us for the opportunity to grow and make a difference in ways that matter to you. 

About the Team

The Database Platform Engineering team is responsible for developing and maintaining enterprise-grade database platforms that drive the firm’s modernization initiatives. By delivering secure, scalable, and standardized database solutions, the team enables the adoption of modern technologies across the organization.

Role Summary

The Principal Database Platform Engineer is the highest-level individual contributor, providing technical leadership in database platform architecture, automation, and modernization. This role focuses on advancing cloud database capabilities, especially within AWS, and supports the firm’s transition to cloud-native environments. The position influences enterprise architecture, senior technologists, and engineering leaders, prioritizing platform modernization, automation, reusable services, and enablement.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture and continuous advancement of enterprise database platforms in cloud and hybrid environments, with an emphasis on AWS-managed services.
• Act as the technical authority for AWS database platforms (Aurora PostgreSQL, Aurora MySQL, DynamoDB, Snowflake) and related services.
• Develop and enforce database platform standards, reusable reference architectures, and patterns to streamline adoption and minimize fragmentation.
• Design and execute migration strategies for traditional databases (Oracle, SQL Server) to cloud-native AWS solutions.
• Perform hands-on engineering to build automation, tooling, and performance enhancements using Infrastructure as Code and database-native features.
• Automate provisioning, configuration, scaling, backup, recovery, and lifecycle management of databases via Terraform, CloudFormation, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Implement performance optimization techniques, including query tuning, indexing, capacity planning, and cost management for large-scale workloads.
• Integrate security, resiliency, compliance, and operational best practices into database platforms.
• Collaborate with Application, Platform, Cloud Engineering, Security, and Enterprise Architecture teams to align strategy and execution.
• Serve as a technical escalation point for complex database issues involving performance, scalability, availability, and migration.
• Mentor senior engineers and database professionals, guiding technical direction across the organization.
• Support Agile delivery by contributing to epics, stories, and iterative platform improvements tracked in Jira.
• Produce high-quality documentation (platform guides, design standards, runbooks) to enable self-service adoption.
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to engineers, leadership, and non-technical stakeholders.

Business Knowledge & Impact:

• Deep understanding of how modern database platforms drive business agility, scalability, and performance.
• Demonstrated expertise in modernizing legacy database estates and leading cloud database transformations.
• Strong systems thinking, balancing standardization, governance, risk management, and deve