Senior Platform Engineer (Founding Infra & Data) (m/f/d)

This is Mako
Mako is a young company in the new energy economy. Our team supports (basic) energy supply companies, metering point operators, and energy service providers in optimizing their internal processes - through consulting, technology, and our own SaaS platform. With our innovative software solution, we have created an efficient, future-oriented, and perfectly tailored tool to meet the challenges of the energy transition, especially for metering point operators and energy service providers.

Our Mission
We are a team of 15 engineers scaling a K8s-based SaaS for enterprise clients. We've reached the stage where our feature velocity is being throttled by distributed systems complexity. We are looking for a Founding Platform Engineer to own our infrastructure, specifically focused on solving performance bottlenecks in our XtraDB/MySQL data layer and our JobRunr/Quartz orchestration.

What you will solve day one

• Connection & Proxy Tuning: Fine-tune the "Handshake" between HikariCP, ProxySQL, and XtraDB. You'll optimize multiplexing, query routing, and connection pooling to eliminate latency spikes.
• Database Contention: Solve the locking issues inherent in our DB-backed job queues (JobRunr/Quartz). You'll identify and resolve row-level contention and long-running transactions that block our XtraDB buffer pool.
• Hibernate Optimization: Partner with our backend teams to ensure Hibernate isn't generating "noisy" SQL or holding onto connections longer than necessary during background processing.
• K8s & Orchestration: Manage our cluster to ensure high availability. You'll harden our pod termination logic and resource scheduling to ensure that background workers don't impact API stability.
• Scale Strategy: Help us define the roadmap for when we move beyond DB-backed queues to high-throughput messaging (e.g., NATS, RabbitMQ, or Redis).

Why you should choose Mako

At our company, team spirit and a relaxed working atmosphere come first. Unfold your potential, contribute to exciting projects, and experience collaboration at eye level.

• You can expect a permanent full-time or part-time position in an open and appreciative environment.
• To help you balance work and everyday life, we offer flexible working models combining remote work and office presence.
• For your work-life balance, you will receive 30 vacation days per year.
• We support you from day one with comprehensive onboarding and a regular range of training opportunities.
• To get you started, we provide you with a company laptop, a monitor for your home office, as well as a headset and mouse.
• In our ergonomic office space in Mannheim, you can enjoy fresh fruit, coffee, and free beverages.
• You are our priority: a company bike (JobRad), a Deutschlandticket subsidy, corporate benefits discounts, monthly vouchers, and referral bonuses are all part of our standard offering.

Your technical toolbelt

• ProxySQL & XtraDB Expert: You know how to configure mysql_query_rules and hostgroups. You understand XtraDB/InnoDB locking models and how to interpret PERCONA_RECAP or slow query logs.
• JVM Performance: You understand the HikariCP lifecycle and how Hibernate/JPA manages transactions. You can spot a connection leak or an unoptimized persistence context from a mile away.
• K8s Native: You live in kubectl. You understand how to map K8s service discovery to ProxySQL backends and how to handle graceful shutdowns in a containerized environment.
• Infrastructure as Code: Proficient in for example Helm to keep our infra versioned and "boring."
• Observability: You use Prometheus/Grafana to track the "Golden Signals" of both our application and our database proxy.

You don't meet all the criteria but still feel like you'd be a great fit for us?

We look forward to receiving your application, including your CV, a short cover letter, and your (work) references. Please also feel free to include your earliest possible start date and salary expectations.

Diversity matters to us: We particularly welcome applications from women, non-binary individuals, and people with diverse backgrounds. What counts for us is your talent-regardless of gender, origin, or career path.

Do you have any questions? Feel free to reach out to us anytime.
Type of position: Full-time, Part-time, Permanent employment