The Manager, Database Administration will lead a team responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining database systems that support critical data operations across the organization. This role will be instrumental in setting strategic direction for database architecture, ensuring high availability and performance, and enabling data-driven decision-making. The successful candidate will drive initiatives around automation, security, and cloud integration while adhering to industry standards and regulatory compliance, such as SOC, HiTrust, PCI, HIPAA and GDPR.
Key Responsibilities
Leadership and Team Development
- Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of database administrators and engineers, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and accountability.
- Set clear team OKRs and goals aligned with organizational objectives, conducting regular performance reviews and providing ongoing feedback.
- Partner with HR on recruiting and retaining top talent, ensuring team capacity meets future workload and project demands.
Database Strategy and Architecture
- Architect and oversee robust, scalable, and secure database environments, leveraging best practices for high availability, disaster recovery, and data integrity.
- Collaborate with DevOps and cloud teams to develop and implement cloud migration strategies, hybrid architectures, and automation solutions (e.g., Cloud Formation, SALT, python scripts, shell scripts).
- Drive the adoption of emerging database technologies and frameworks, keeping the organization competitive and prepared for future demands.
Performance and Optimization
- Deep knowledge of database internals from installation, to patching and upgrade, and customer parameter tuning
- Proactively monitor database systems to identify performance bottlenecks and implement tuning strategies, including indexing, query optimization, and storage management.
- Analyze workload patterns and advise on capacity planning and forecasting to ensure databases are resilient and responsive to growth.
- Oversee automation initiatives in backup, recovery, and failover procedures to reduce manual intervention and improve reliability.
Operational Management and Support
- Ensure 24/7 database uptime and availability, establishing and refining incident management protocols to minimize downtime and improve response time.
- Develop and enforce SLAs and operational KPIs, producing regular reports on database health, performance, and capacity.
- Coordinate with infrastructure and security teams to execute patching, upgrades, and compliance audits, maintaining system security and integrity.
Compliance and Security
- Lead efforts to implement and maintain data privacy and compliance requirements, including HiTrust, FedRAMP, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI and SOC, as applicable.
- Design and enforce access controls, encryption standards, and data masking policies to safeguard sensitive data.
- Conduct regular security assessments, vulnerability scans, and penetration tests, applying mitigations for identified risks.
Collaboration and Cross-Functional Leadership
- Work closely with executives, development, quality assurance, systems engineering, and data engineering teams to align database architecture with application requirements, ensuring smooth data flow and integration.
- Engage with product and business stakeholders to understand upcoming needs, ensuring database systems support evolving business requirements.
- Represent the database team in technical discussions, architecture reviews, and strategy sessions, advocating for optimal database solutions.
Skills and Knowledge
Technical Proficiency
- Expert-level knowledge in database systems, including Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and NoSQL databases like MongoDB, ElasticSearch, and Redis.
- Familiarity with modern database tools and platforms (e.g., AWS RDS, Azure SQL, or Google Cloud SQL, MongoDB Atlas, ElasticCloud) and hybrid or multi-cloud database environments.
- Proficiency in SQL, database design, and performance tuning, with strong skills in scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash) for automation.
Analytical and Problem-Solving Abilities
- Skilled in troubleshooting and root-cause analysis, with the ability to resolve complex database issues quickly.
- Experience with monitoring tools (e.g., New Relic, Cloudwatch, Prometheus, Grafana) and APM solutions to track and optimize database performance.
Communication and Interpersonal Skills
- Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, able to articulate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong collaborative skills, with a track record of working effectively with cross-functional teams, managing conflicts, and negotiating priorities.
Qualifications and Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience).
- 10+ years of experience in database administration with at least 3 years in a leadership or management role.
- Working with managed services partners, offshore resources, remote and distributed teams.
- Hands-on experience with Agile methodologies (scrum, springs, kanban), DevOps practices, and ticketing systems (ServiceNow, Jira) with an understanding of CI/CD pipelines.
- Knowledge of ITIL/ITSM practices, with experience in creating and managing runbooks, playbooks, and operational documentation.
- Hands on keyboard experience with multiple database engines such as MySQL (onprem, self-hosted and RDS) , MongoDB (Atlas, EC2 hosted), ElasticSearch (ElasticCloud, EC2 hosted), PostgreSQL (onprem, self-hosted and RDS), Redis, Oracle, MSSQL
- Certifications in database platforms (e.g., Oracle Certified Professional, Microsoft SQL Server) or cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) preferred.
Preferred Qualifications
- Familiarity with data engineering concepts, including ETL, data warehousing, and data lakes, supporting analytics and reporting requirements.
- Experience managing database environments in a microservices or containerized ecosystem (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker).
- Experience implementing air-gapped backups.
- Exposure to Big Data technologies (e.g., Snowflake, Redshift) and experience integrating structured and unstructured data sources.
