Database Engineer

Title: Database Engineer Belong. Connect. Grow. with KBR! KBR’s National Security Solutions team provides high-end engineering and advanced technology solutions to our customers in the intelligence and national security communities. In this position, your work will have a profound impact on the country’s most critical role – protecting our national security.

Why Join Us?

Innovative Projects: At KBR, you'll be working on cutting-edge projects that support the Department of the Air Force’s most mission-critical operations. Our team is pushing the boundaries of open-source development, DevSecOps with state-of-the-art CI/CD pipelines, containerization, Kubernetes, Terraform, Zarf, and innovative API management and database design. You'll be contributing to systems designed for a modeling and simulation SaaS platform that provides dynamic compute power, access to tools, and collaboration capability through a model that will revolutionize the future of military research and development.

Collaborative Environment: Our team thrives in a dynamic, mission-driven environment where our employees work shoulder-to-shoulder with software engineers, DevSecOps architects, product leads, mission experts, and defense specialists. We embrace Agile methodologies and secure development practices to ensure rapid iteration, compliance alignment, and seamless integration across modular systems. Our culture prioritizes clarity, precision, and innovation—fostering open communication, iterative refinement, and deep collaboration to deliver software and documentation that’s not only compliant, but strategic and impactful across DoD.

Impactful Work: Your work here will directly support the Department of the Air Force in advancing defense technology. You’ll be at the forefront of innovations, creating new paradigms for providing access to compute power, modeling and simulation tools, and data sharing across organizations to the Department of the Air Force and broader Department of Defense.

Position Summary

KBR is seeking a motivated and technically capable Database Engineer to support the development, deployment, and sustainment of the GEMSTONE platform. The Database Engineer will support the design, implementation, administration, automation, and optimization of mission‑critical data services that enable platform operations, user applications, digital engineering workflows, analytics, warfighter AI/ML capabilities, and cross‑organizational data sharing. The successful candidate will work closely with software engineers, platform engineers, DevSecOps engineers, cybersecurity personnel, and government stakeholders to ensure scalable, secure, and performant data management solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, configure, and maintain relational, non‑relational, distributed, and/or leaderless database solutions supporting GEMSTONE platform services and applications across multiple versions.
• Support deployment and sustainment of databases used by microservices in containerized Kubernetes environments.
• Assist with database schema design, data modeling, indexing strategies, and query optimization.
• Develop automated database provisioning, backup, recovery, replication, and migration capabilities using Infrastructure‑as‑Code and CI/CD pipelines.
• Support implementation of data governance, audit logging, access control, and cybersecurity requirements.
• Monitor database health, performance, storage utilization, and availability.
• Troubleshoot database performance, connectivity, and operational issues.
• Assist software engineering teams with database integration and API‑driven data access patterns.
• Support data persistence requirements for user applications, digital engineering artifacts, simulation outputs, and platform services.
• Participate in DevSecOps, Agile, and CI/CD activities.
• Contribute to technical documentation, architecture products, and operational procedures.
• Support deployment of solutions across cloud, hybrid, and potentially disconnected operational environments.

Work Environment

Location: Onsite or hybrid-Dayton, OH

Travel Requirements: None

Working Hours: Standard

Standard Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or related technical discipline.
• Ability to learn complex software ecosystems and rapidly become proficient in new platforms and technologies.
• Ability to obtain a DoD Secret security clearance 1–5 years of professional experience supporting database technologies.
• Experience with one or more relational database platforms: PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, or MSSQL.
• Experience with NoSQL databases such as: MongoDB, Couchbase, RavenDB, or Firestore Elasticsearch or OpenSearch Redis, Valkey, or Memcached FoundationDB, CockroachDB, TiKV, or YugabyteDB.
• Experience with Distributed Consensus and Replication.
• Experience writing and optimizing SQL queries.
• Experience Understanding of database design principles, normalization, and data modeling.
• Familiarity with Linux operating systems.
• Basic scripting experience in Python, Bash, or PowerShell.

Desired

• Experience with ETL processes and how databases play a role.
• Experience with Kubernetes and containerized application environments.
• Familiarity with databases hosted by AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
• Experience supporting distributed microservice architectures.
• Understanding of API-driven systems and data integration patterns.
• Understanding and implementation of the Transactional Outbox pattern.
• Experience with: PostgreSQL scaling and replication High-availability database architectures.
• Exposure to DevSecOps practices and CI/CD tools.
• Familiarity with digital engineering, MBSE, M&S, analytics, or AI/ML environments.
• Understanding of NIST RMF, STIGs, and DoD cybersecurity requirements.
• Experience supporting observability platforms such as Grafana, Prometheus, or Loki.

KBR Benefits

• 401K plan with company match
• medical
• dental
• vision
• life insurance
• AD&D
• flexible spending account
• disability
• paid time off
• flexible work schedule

We support career advancement through professional training and development.

Belong, Connect and Grow at KBR

At KBR, we are passionate about our people and our Zero Harm culture. These inform all that we do and are at the heart of our commitment to, and ongoing journey toward being a People First company. That commitment is central to our team’s philosophy and fosters an environment where everyone can Belong, Connect and Grow. We Deliver – Together.

KBR is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, union status and/or beliefs, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

KBR — Delivering Solutions, Changing the World.

One KBR Values

We Value Our People – We create diverse, inclusive environments in which each person can feel safe, respected and valued, and where everyone has opportunities to grow and reach their full potential.

We Deliver – We are uncompromising in our commitment to deliver innovative, high‑quality, technology‑led solutions for our customers and exceptional, sustainable value for all our stakeholders.

We Are People of Integrity – We value honesty, trust, courage, fairness, prudence and tenacity. We believe doing what’s right for the planet, the communities where we work, and our people is good for business.

We Empower – We empower our people with a shared purpose, the right tools and the supportive culture they need to be proactive decision-makers, to be adaptive to change, and to succeed.

We Are a Team of Teams – We have a will to succeed, but we value the achievements of our team of teams over individual accomplishments. Our collective focus makes us a better, stronger, more effective company.

We have also embedded environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles in every business operation and corporate function. Not only are we committed to operating safely, sustainably and equitably, but we are also committed to using our capabilities and expertise to help our customers accomplish their sustainability goals.

Worldwide, KBR employs a diverse workforce approximately 29,000 people strong, with customers in more than 80 countries and operations in 40 countries. At KBR, We Deliver.