About Planet
Planet is a global provider of integrated technology and payments solutions for retail and hospitality customers.
We create great experiences for the millions of people who use our payments, software, and tax-free solutions every minute of every day.
Planet empowers its customers to deliver great customer experiences by combining payments and software in ways that drive greater loyalty, increase revenue and save time.
Founded over 35 years ago and with our headquarters in London, today we have more than 2,500 employees located across six continents serving our customers in more than 120 markets.
We are seeking a permanent Database Lead / Director to own the database technical and service layer end to end - across fully managed, managed-instance, and self-hosted platforms including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL - within a large PCI DSS scope. This is both a leadership and a deeply technical role: you will build and lead the DBA pod, set strategy and standards, act as senior design authority and final escalation point, and carry Planet’s data platforms forward sustainably - automation-first, cost-aware (FinOps), resilient, secure, and built to scale. The role reports to the VP- Global Technology Operations
Strategy & technical ownership — Own the strategy, architecture, standards, and roadmap for the entire database estate across AWS, Azure, and on-prem; act as senior design authority and final escalation point for database matters.
Team leadership & build-out — Build, lead, and mentor the in-house DBA pod; define roles, uplift skills (including AWS and Azure certification), and foster a culture of engineering excellence and continuous improvement.
Sustainable operations & FinOps — Embed FinOps as a daily discipline: right-size platforms, optimise licensing and cloud spend, and balance managed-service adoption against engineering effort to keep the estate cost-effective and sustainable.
Reliability, HA & DR — Set and assure resilience standards: high availability, disaster recovery, backup and recovery, and RTO/RPO across managed and self-hosted platforms
Security & compliance — Own database security posture and PCI DSS compliance from day one (encryption, access control, auditing, segregation of duties); partner with Security and Compliance on evidence collection and audits.
Automation & engineering standards — Champion an automation-first, infrastructure-as-code approach (Terraform, CI/CD for database change) and set schema, code-review, and operational standards across the pod.
Governance & vendor management — Own database governance, SLAs, and vendor / partner relationships, including licensing, support, and managed-service providers.
Stakeholder leadership — Partner with application, platform, security, and infrastructure leaders; translate business needs into a scalable, future-proof data platform strategy, and keep SOPs, runbooks, DR playbooks, and architecture documentation to audit standard.
Proven leadership of database / DBA teams at lead, principal, or director level, combining people leadership with hands-on technical authority.
Track record setting database strategy, standards, and architecture across a complex, hybrid estate.
Enterprise-scale HA/DR, backup / recovery, and business-continuity design, consistently meeting RTO/RPO.
End-to-end ownership of Planet’s database estate - managed, managed-instance, and lift-and-shift platforms (MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and NoSQL) within a large PCI DSS scope
Why Planet:
Planet is an equal opportunity employer where diversity is valued, and all employment is decided based on qualifications, merit, and business need.
Come and grow your career in the most exciting, fast paced technology market, with a business that delivers feel-good connected commerce.
At Planet, we embrace a hybrid work model, with three days a week in the office.
Reasonable accommodations may be made in order to allow for an individual to perform the essential functions of this role successfully.
