Senior Database Administrator

About the role

The Senior Database Administrator plays a critical role in modernizing data platforms, enabling cloud transformation, improving reliability and performance, and ensuring business continuity across mission-critical systems. They partner closely with software engineers, cloud infrastructure teams, enterprise security, architects, and business stakeholders to deliver highly available, secure, and scalable database solutions.

Responsibilities

• Database Architecture & Engineering Design, implement, and manage enterprise-grade database environments across Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), AWS, and hybrid platforms.
• Lead architecture and administration efforts for Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer (ExaCC), Oracle RAC, and Oracle GoldenGate.
• Design and support active-active, high-availability, and global database architectures, including Aurora Global Database and Oracle RAC.
• Lead enterprise database modernization initiatives, including migrations from on-premises environments to cloud-native services.
• Engineer and administer AWS database technologies including: Amazon RDS (Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server), Amazon Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, Amazon Redshift, OpenSearch/Elasticsearch.
• Utilize AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) and related technologies to support modernization initiatives.
• Partner with engineering teams to support application decomposition and migration from monolithic architectures to microservices.
• Establish and maintain Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) across critical platforms.
• Lead database security initiatives including encryption, auditing, access controls, compliance, and vulnerability remediation.
• Perform advanced database performance tuning, optimization, capacity planning, and forecasting.
• Develop and maintain disaster recovery and business continuity strategies.
• Conduct synthetic testing and performance validation to ensure platform readiness.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex database incidents, outages, and performance issues.
• Lead root cause analysis and implement preventative solutions.
• Manage database patching, upgrades, maintenance, and lifecycle management activities.
• Execute database-related deployments, data fixes, and production changes.
• Participate in a 24x7x365 on-call rotation and support critical maintenance activities.
• Develop metrics, dashboards, and reporting to measure operational effectiveness and platform health.
• Mentor and guide junior and mid-level database administrators.
• Collaborate closely with cloud engineers, software developers, security teams, and project stakeholders.
• Lead enterprise-level projects from planning through successful implementation.
• Promote operational excellence, automation, and continuous improvement practices across the organization.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, or a related field.
• Equivalent combinations of education, certifications, training, and experience will be considered.
• 5+ years of enterprise database administration and engineering experience supporting Oracle databases.
• 4+ years of experience administering enterprise database platforms including PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, Redshift, and Elasticsearch/OpenSearch.
• Experience designing and supporting highly available, mission-critical database environments.
• Experience migrating databases from traditional infrastructure to cloud database services.
• Experience implementing and supporting AWS database technologies and migration tooling.
• Experience supporting application modernization initiatives and microservices architectures.
• Experience with database deployment automation, DevOps practices, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience working within Change Management and ITIL-based operational environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• 7+ years of enterprise database administration and engineering experience.
• Experience with Qlik Replicate, Qlik analytics platforms, and Talend integrations.
• Experience supporting large-scale cloud transformation initiatives.
• Relevant Oracle, AWS, or database-related certifications.
• Experience in higher education, healthcare, financial services, or other highly regulated environments.