Database Administrator

We are seeking a Cloud & Platform Database Administrator/Database Reliability Engineer to manage, optimize, and secure both managed and self-managed databases that power high-traffic e-commerce websites. This role will primarily focus on AWS and GCP environments, with support for a smaller on-premises and hosted database estate. Your mission will be to ensure high availability, optimal performance, robust security and compliance, and cost efficiency, especially during peak operational periods.

Key Responsibilities:

Operating Managed Databases (Cloud):

• Manage AWS RDS/Aurora (MySQL/PostgreSQL), Google Cloud SQL, DynamoDB, MongoDB, DB2, and Oracle.
• Perform indexing, query plan analysis, schema design for OLTP, and tune connection pools and concurrency.

Building and Supporting Self-Managed Databases (Hosted/On-Prem/VMs):

• Administer Oracle 19c, IBM DB2 LUW 9.5–11.5, MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB on Linux/Unix/Windows.
• Handle installation, patching, upgrades, parameter/kernel tuning, storage layout (e.g., ASM/LVM), and backup/restore operations.

Ensuring High Availability, Resilience, and Disaster Recovery:

• Implement cloud-based HA/DR solutions including Multi-AZ, read replicas, Aurora Global Database, cross-region replication, RDS Proxy, PITR/snapshots, and tested RTO/RPO.
• Utilize self-managed HA/DR solutions like Oracle Data Guard (and/or RAC), DB2 HADR, MySQL replication/Group Replication/XtraDB Cluster, and MongoDB replica sets/sharding, along with backup utilities such as RMAN, XtraBackup, and db2 backup.
• Support production and non-production environments, ensuring data backup, restore, and sensitive data obfuscation.
• Develop and write SQL/PLSQL code.

Automation and Change Management:

• Utilize Terraform/CloudFormation for cloud infrastructure and Ansible for self-managed environments, implementing GitOps workflows.
• Implement CI/CD pipelines for database changes using tools like Flyway/Liquibase, establish standards, perform drift detection, and automate patching and failover.

Observability and Performance Engineering:

• Implement and utilize monitoring tools such as CloudWatch/Cloud Monitoring, RDS Performance Insights, pg_stat_statements, MySQL Performance Schema, Oracle AWR/ASH/Statspack/OEM, DB2 MON/Explain, and Datadog/New Relic/Prometheus/Grafana.
• Conduct capacity planning, load/soak testing for peak events (e.g., BFCM), define SLOs for latency/availability/throughput, and perform post-incident reviews.

Security, Compliance, and Governance:

• Implement IAM least privilege, secrets management (AWS Secrets Manager/HashiCorp Vault), and audit logging.
• Ensure compliance with PCI-DSS and GDPR controls, manage data retention/masking, and oversee change control and approvals.

Cost and Capacity Stewardship:

• Optimize cloud costs through right-sizing instances/storage/IOPS, managing reserved vs. on-demand/serverless choices, DynamoDB capacity modes, and cost anomaly detection.
• Develop capacity forecasting and scaling plans for self-managed databases, with basic awareness of enterprise platform licensing.

Architecture Collaboration:

• Collaborate on schema evolution, query patterns, caching strategies (Redis/Memcached), and read/write segregation.
• Provide guidance on ORM usage, connection pools, and patterns for microservices and event-driven systems (Kafka/Kinesis/Pub/Sub).

Operations and Ways of Working:

• Partner effectively with development, support, and architecture teams, maintaining clear runbooks and documentation.
• Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation, leading incident response and implementing preventative actions.
• Support and plan migrations between self-managed and managed services, ensuring validation and rollback strategies.

Required Skills and Experience:

• Hands-on production experience with managed relational databases in AWS or GCP (RDS/Aurora or Cloud SQL) using MySQL or PostgreSQL.
• Experience administering at least one self-managed enterprise RDBMS in Linux/Unix environments (Oracle or IBM DB2 LUW), or the ability to quickly acquire such skills.
• Strong performance tuning skills, including execution plan analysis, indexing strategy, slow query analysis, and concurrency/connection management.
• Expertise in High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR), including replication, failover/runbooks, backups, and point-in-time recovery, with a proven ability to set and meet RTO/RPO targets.
• An automation mindset, with experience in Terraform/CloudFormation, Ansible, CI/CD for schema changes (Flyway/Liquibase), Git, and scripting in Python/Bash.
• Solid understanding of security and compliance fundamentals, including IAM, encryption (in transit/at rest), auditing, and familiarity with PCI-DSS and GDPR.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to mentor teams and document best practices.

Desirable Skills:

• Deep knowledge of Oracle (RAC, Data Guard), DB2 HADR, or advanced PostgreSQL/MySQL internals.
• Experience with MongoDB Atlas and on-prem MongoDB (Ops Manager/backup, replica sets/sharding).
• Familiarity with Redis/Memcached (ElastiCache/Memorystore), Kafka/Kinesis/Pub/Sub, or Kubernetes-based application stacks.
• Exposure to analytics platforms (BigQuery/Snowflake) for operational reporting.
• Proven experience migrating legacy database estates to managed services with minimal downtime.
• Ability to participate in an on-call/out-of-hours rotation with appropriate compensation.

This role offers a hybrid working model, with regular collaboration expected at our Watford office and occasional client site visits.