How to apply for Database Reliability Engineer

About Fuse Energy

Fuse Energy is a startup building a fully integrated energy company, from solar and battery generation to trading power and installing distributed energy in homes. It has raised over $200M from investors including Balderton, Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, Lowercarbon, Ribbit, 20VC, Hummingbird, and Collaborative Fund. Working here means owning data infrastructure for a company that sells directly to consumers and uses AI across the business.

About the role

This database reliability engineer role owns the reliability, performance, and scalability of Fuse's database infrastructure across Postgres and ClickHouse. You will build and maintain data pipelines, design analytical schemas, and migrate data from Postgres into ClickHouse. The work directly supports analytics, reporting, and product needs for a company trading power in real time and installing distributed energy in homes.

A typical day

A typical day might involve checking Postgres and ClickHouse health, tuning queries, and reviewing pipeline runs. You could spend time designing or evolving analytical schemas and working on migrations from Postgres into ClickHouse. You would coordinate with analytics, reporting, and product teams to keep data reliable and scalable. Exact routines depend on the team, so ask about on-call, standups, and collaboration patterns during interviews.

Who Fuse Energy is looking for

• Has hands-on production experience with Postgres and ClickHouse, including performance tuning, replication, backups, and recovery.
• Has built and maintained scalable data pipelines for analytics, reporting, or product use cases.
• Can design analytical schemas that translate business logic into structured, intuitive data models.
• Has experience migrating and transforming data between Postgres and ClickHouse with attention to performance and reliability.
• Is comfortable working remotely and owning database reliability end to end.

Tips for this application

• Name Postgres and ClickHouse explicitly in your resume and cover letter. This role is not generic database work.
• Describe a specific data pipeline you built or maintained, including scale, tooling, and reliability outcomes.
• Explain a schema design decision you made and how it served analytics or product needs.
• Include a concrete example of migrating or transforming data between Postgres and ClickHouse, or between similar OLTP and OLAP systems.
• Mention that you understand Fuse Energy's model: own generation, hardware, grid infrastructure, real-time power trading, AI across the business, and direct-to-consumer sales.

What to cover in your cover letter

Focus on your production experience with Postgres and ClickHouse, including tuning, reliability, and recovery. Describe a data pipeline you built or maintained and the scale it supported. Explain how you approach analytical schema design and translating business logic into data models. Give a concrete example of migrating or transforming data from Postgres into ClickHouse.

Research before applying

• Read Fuse Energy's public materials on its fully integrated model: solar and battery generation, hardware, grid infrastructure, real-time power trading, AI across the business, and home energy installation.
• Research ClickHouse and Postgres performance characteristics for analytical and transactional workloads, since the role bridges both.
• Look into the investors listed, including Balderton, Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, Lowercarbon, Ribbit, 20VC, Hummingbird, and Collaborative Fund, to understand the company's stage and backers.
• Find out what Fuse Energy has said publicly about its data stack, analytics needs, or engineering blog, and prepare questions about the current state of its database infrastructure.

Likely interview topics

Based on the job description, expect questions about:

• How you would design and evolve an analytical schema in ClickHouse for energy trading or customer usage data.
• Your approach to migrating and transforming data from Postgres into ClickHouse while maintaining performance and reliability.
• How you would build and maintain a scalable data pipeline for analytics, reporting, and product needs.
• Your experience with Postgres reliability: replication, backups, failover, and performance tuning.
• How you would handle database reliability for a company that trades power in real time and installs distributed energy in homes.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Applying without mentioning Postgres or ClickHouse by name. This role is specific about both systems.
• Describing only generic database administration without showing pipeline, schema, or migration work.
• Ignoring the energy context. Fuse Energy trades power in real time and installs distributed energy in homes, so data reliability has direct operational impact.