Senior Database Administrator

The MSRB is looking for a committed and driven Senior Database Administrator (SR. DBA) with a broad understanding and appreciation of AWS Cloud Databases and hands-on experience with AWS database components and CI/CD pipelines.

Team members are expected to demonstrate technical proficiency as well as strong communication and collaboration abilities. The Sr DBA will contribute directly to design and operational processes and will be empowered to proactively drive best practices and changes at the program and organizational level. Candidates should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of Oracle and AWS Cloud database technologies, frameworks, and concepts along with excellent communications skills and a desire to learn and grow.

The Database Administration Team is responsible for securing the MSRB database systems by supporting existing controls and processes and through leading efforts to continually improve security across multiple dimensions and domains and enterprise systems. The Sr. DBA will support operational database management processes. We expect the Sr. DBA to work effectively with internal stakeholders, including the information security team, MSRB leadership, developers, system operations and network administrators, and with external vendors including Cloud Service Providers and databases vendors.

The Sr. DBA will also be responsible for performance monitoring and tuning. They will work collaboratively with developers, IT Infrastructure and IT Operations to ensure the system is operating within desired specification ranges.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Operational Oversight and Support:

• Serve as a key escalation point within the database administration team, providing guidance for effective resolution.
• Directly triage and respond to databases alerts, database capacity and performance reports, and end-user requests on a regular basis.
• Identify and resolve issues in MSRB database related controls, systems, and applications.
• Lead and support maintenance and troubleshooting activities for the Database Administration program.
• Lead and support database vulnerability management processes, such as database patching, database security scanning vulnerability assessment, prevention and remediation efforts.

Architectural Excellence and Resilience:

• Lead and work with team members to configure database resources including but not limited on the Oracle and AWS Aurora PostgreSQL RDS and DynamoDB and continuously monitor and proactively to prevent and correct any issues to ensure the highest availability for MSRB databases systems.
• Design and implement robust security measures on all databases applications including web applications, cloud infrastructure, and enterprise systems.
• Using AWS CI/CD pipeline with Python and AWS CLI for databases resources management and deployment to ensure predictability and consistencies on all MSRB databases systems.
• Implement consistent AWS Aurora RDS Parameter groups for both cluster and instance levels.
• Identify and implement the best practices to secure database resources and web applications against potential threats.
• Ensure compliance with relevant regulations, standards, organizational policies, and best practices, including cloud standards and best practices.

Databases systems availabilities and reliabilities:

• Monitor database status activity daily to make sure that database is up running and is working properly.
• Support database server Linux patching activities on database server monthly to keep server secured and minimize the risk of malicious impact.
• Manage and Maintain and Apply Oracle Critical Patch Updates (CPU) patches each quarter and other oracle recommended patch sets when they become available and upgrade AWS Aurora PostgreSQL databases to ensure proper security measures and address any known security risks.
• Configure and validate Oracle and AWS database backup, exports and snapshots every day to make sure they are working properly.
• Maintain and update SOPs for Database disaster recovery. Perform periodic review and testing for database recovery processes.
• Follow DBA Protocol and procedures to promptly address any database system issues. Ensure MSRB adapts to the changing database security landscape, making informed recommendations and decisions to database systems configurations, security controls.
• Automate controls and processes where possible.

Compliance:

• Reach the goal of always being compliant. Collect and centrally maintain all database systems artifacts to respond to audits in a timely manner, with limited SME impact.
• Follow best practice to maintain and monitor classic oracle database DBA privilege users
• Follow best practice to maintain and monitor the AWS cloud databases to ensure the secrets storing database user information are automatic rotated every 90 days.
• Follow best practice to grant proper permission when creating database users.
• Maintain classic Oracle database storage to ensure it is good stewards and saving cost by using proper storage type.
• Monitor the classic Oracle database space usage daily to make sure it has proper available space for the database to reduce space usage cost.
• Ensure all database related audits information is collected in a timely manner.
• Choose proper resource type and size when provisioning AWS RDS database related resources to reduce expenses.

Cloud Systems Design and Management:

• Design and implement AWS Cloud databases systems to ensure failover and monitor capabilities are in place for high availability of database resources.
• Design and support the DMS tasks of migrating Data from classic Oracle databases to Aurora Postgres clusters and s3 buckets
• Follow best practice to design and creation of database resource using CDK and ci/cd pipelines
• Create, maintain and implement Aurora Postgres Database clone from one environment to multiple environments.
• Continue to implement, improve, and secure MSRB database systems to enhance users’ management and databases resources monitoring.
• Work with project teams to plan, architecture design, implementation, setting and enforce database standards on AWS Cloud systems environment including Aurora PostgreSQL, AWS DynamoDB and AWS Glue/Athena.

Qualified candidates will have 10+ years’ experience in enterprise databases management, including Oracle and AWS Cloud platform, Identity and Access Management (IAM), Cloud Watch, Performance Insights and PostgreSQL queries management is desirable. They will also possess the following capabilities:

Critical Thinking Can break problems down into manageable, ordered components and effectively communicate issues and plans to others. Demonstrates the ability to use different problem-solving strategies and select the one that best meets the requirements of the situation. Gathers data to support recommendations and seeks approval before taking action to minimize risk and maximize impact.

Good Judgment Takes self-governed, consistent, action to prioritize and weigh cost and value to determine the action most appropriately aligned with organizational goals. Keeps the big picture in mind while focusing on specific issues. Weighs risks and tradeoffs reasonably. Reliably escalates when necessary.

Independence Can work on complex problems and completely new tasks within time constraints. Takes a deep sense of ownership in their work, no matter how small the task.

Collaboration Eager to help teammates solve problems and tackle challenges. Willing to get “hands dirty” with day-to-day tasks. Takes initiative to actively participate in team interactions. Draws on the strengths of fellow team members. Actively seeks opinions and ideas from people of varied background and experiences to improve decisions. Willing to solve hard problems and help generate creative solutions.

Influence Demonstrates strong and consistent influence skills, working effectively with MSRB staff, to present logical and compelling arguments. Explains the immediate context of the situation, asks relevant questions with follow-ups, and seeks advice prior to acting. Can effectively distill and communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical staff. Communicates effectively.

We welcome candidates with strong Cloud or application deployment backgrounds with a willingness to develop expertise in additional database engineering specialties.

Listed above is the targeted salary range for a new hire into this role. Final compensation decisions will be based upon a candidate’s relevant skills and experience.

Benefits

We are proud to offer a comprehensive benefits package that supports our employees’ overall mental and physical health and wellness. We aim to empower our employees with the resources they need to achieve a successful work life integration. For a comprehensive list of our benefits Click Here.