AWS Aurora PostgreSQL Engineer

Company Overview

At 4A Consulting, we turn complexity into opportunity. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Baltimore, MD, we are a women-owned, boutique consulting firm specializing in delivering innovative, data-driven solutions to both the Federal Government and Fortune 500 clients. Our team blends deep industry knowledge with advanced technologies to design tailored strategies that drive measurable and sustainable outcomes. We pride ourselves on an agile, collaborative approach that helps organizations navigate challenges and seize emerging opportunities in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. At 4A, we don’t just deliver projects, we build trusted partnerships that empower our clients to lead with confidence in the digital age.

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced AWS Aurora PostgreSQL Engineer with deep expertise in Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL internals, high availability design, and AWS cloud native operations. This role supports mission critical systems by ensuring performance, resiliency, automation, and operational excellence across Aurora PostgreSQL environments. The ideal candidate combines strong database engineering skills with modern cloud, automation, and DevOps practices.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL architecture, cluster components, failover mechanics, storage layer behavior, and reader/writer topology.
• Configure and manage Aurora Serverless v2, autoscaling, and cost optimization strategies.
• Tune parameter groups, manage cluster endpoints, and leverage Aurora performance features.
• Apply strong SQL fundamentals and advanced PostgreSQL internal knowledge.
• Manage logical and physical replication, version upgrades, and patching activities.
• Use PostgreSQL extensions, vacuum operations, indexing strategies, execution plan analysis, and query tuning.
• Utilize AWS services including IAM, VPC/networking, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and Secrets Manager.
• Monitor and optimize RDS/Aurora performance using Insights, alarms, event subscriptions, and workload metrics.
• Perform backup/restore operations, manage snapshots, and support points in time recovery processes.
• Integrate database changes in CI/CD pipelines using Liquibase or Flyway.
• Maintain automated DDL/DCL deployment pipelines and configure automation using Ansible or similar tools.
• Engineer and support multi-AZ Aurora clusters, read replica topologies, and failover ready architectures.
• Validate and maintain DR runbooks and support 24/7 or mission critical database workloads.
• Implement IAM roles, credential rotation, encryption controls, audit logging, and parameter hardening.
• Work within enterprise governance structures for data access and role management.
• Conduct slow query diagnostics, wait event analysis, and root cause troubleshooting to analyze performance.
• Leverage Aurora and PostgreSQL logs, metrics, and dashboards for operational insights and tuning.
• Script with Python, Bash, or PowerShell for automation, maintenance, or operational tasks.
• Automate Aurora tasks using AWS CLI or APIs.
• Deploy and manage Aurora environments using AWS CDK or equivalent Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with 7+ years of relevant experience.
• Hands on experience engineering, operating, and optimizing Aurora PostgreSQL clusters.
• Strong proficiency with PostgreSQL internals, query tuning, indexing, vacuum strategies, and replication.
• Working experience with Aurora failover behaviors, storage mechanics, endpoints, and performance tuning.
• Proficiency using AWS cloud native services for database operations and security.
• Experience with snapshot management, PITR, and high availability database architectures.
• Strong scripting capability in Python, Bash, or PowerShell.
• Experience in integrating databases into CI/CD workflows.
• Familiarity with infrastructure automation tools such as Ansible and CDK.
• Ability to troubleshoot performance issues, database errors, and architectural bottlenecks.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting mission critical or high availability federal systems.
• Exposure to CloudFormation, Terraform, or broader IaC frameworks.
• Experience in creating database standards, guardrails, and governance best practices.
• Familiarity with multi-Region architectures and advanced DR strategies.
• AWS certifications such as Solutions Architect, Database Specialty, or DevOps Engineer.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Employer sponsorship is not available for this position.

Why Join 4A 

• Be part of a mission-driven, women-owned consulting firm with a reputation for excellence.
• Work on high-impact projects across federal and commercial clients.
• Collaborate in an inclusive, growth-oriented culture where innovation is valued.
• Access career development programs, mentorship, and learning opportunities.
• Enjoy a comprehensive benefits package, flexible work options, and a focus on work-life balance.

Equal Opportunity Statement

4A Consulting is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to an inclusive hiring process. Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation due to a disability may contact . This email is intended solely for accommodation requests.

Please note that 4A Consulting participates in the federal E-Verify program. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the US. 4A Consulting will only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.