Sr. Database Admin

Role : Sr. Database Admin (Oracle + PostgreSQL)

Location: 99 Jefferson Rd, Parsippany, NJ

Job Type: Contract

Exp Level: 10+

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Database Administrator with strong expertise in both Oracle and AWS PostgreSQL to join our engineering team. In this role, you will be responsible for the stability, performance, security, and availability of enterprise databases supporting mission-critical applications. You will work closely with application, infrastructure, and security teams to proactively manage database health and drive continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

Database Administration

• Administer, configure, and maintain Oracle (19c+) and PostgreSQL (14+) database environments across development, staging, and production
• Manage database provisioning, schema design, user access, and lifecycle operations
• Perform version upgrades, patch management, and migrations with minimal downtime
• Maintain and test backup and recovery strategies (RMAN, pg_dump, point-in-time recovery)

Performance & Query Optimization

• Analyze and tune slow-running queries using execution plans, explain plans, and profiling tools (AWR, ADDM, pg_stat_statements, pgBadger)
• Design and maintain optimal indexing strategies, partitioning schemes, and statistics management
• Identify and resolve locking, contention, and resource bottleneck issues
• Conduct regular performance reviews and capacity planning assessments

Monitoring & Alerting

• Set up and maintain proactive database monitoring using tools such as OEM (Oracle Enterprise Manager), pgAdmin, Prometheus + Grafana, Datadog, or equivalent
• Define and configure threshold-based alerts for CPU, memory, I/O, tablespace usage, replication lag, connection pools, and long-running queries
• Build dashboards for real-time visibility into database health and performance trends
• Ensure 24/7 observability with appropriate on-call escalation runbooks

Debugging & Incident Response

• Lead triage and root cause analysis (RCA) for database-related incidents including outages, data corruption, replication failures, and performance degradation
• Maintain detailed incident logs and post-mortem documentation
• Collaborate with application teams to debug data-layer issues and provide resolution guidance

Proactive Support & Reliability

• Conduct regular health checks, audit reviews, and preventive maintenance
• Identify risks before they become incidents, proactively address fragile configurations, aging objects, and growing technical debt in database infrastructure
• Maintain and improve DR (Disaster Recovery) and HA (High Availability) setups, Oracle Data Guard, RAC, PostgreSQL Streaming Replication, pgBouncer, Patroni
• Document runbooks, SOPs, and knowledge base articles for recurring operational tasks

Security & Compliance

• Ensure databases meet compliance requirements (SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR) including data masking, encryption at rest and in transit, and audit trails
• Conduct periodic access reviews and vulnerability assessments
• Enforce role-based access control (RBAC), least-privilege principles, and audit logging

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of hands-on DBA experience with Oracle (11g/19c) and PostgreSQL (12+)
• Deep expertise in query tuning and execution plan analysis for both platforms
• Experience working in cloud environments - AWS RDS/Aurora
• Proficiency with Oracle tools: SQL*Plus, RMAN, AWR, ADDM, OEM
• Proficiency with PostgreSQL tools: psql, pg_stat_*, pgBadger, pgBouncer, Patroni, pg_activity
• Experience designing and managing monitoring and alerting pipelines
• Strong understanding of HA/DR architectures - Data Guard, RAC, streaming replication, failover clustering
• Solid scripting skills in Shell, Python, or PL/SQL / PL/pgSQL for automation

Preferred Qualifications

• Oracle OCA/OCP or equivalent certification
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, Ansible) for database provisioning
• Familiarity with containerized databases (PostgreSQL on Kubernetes, CrunchyData, CloudNativePG)
• Exposure to database observability platforms like Dynatrace, Datadog
• Prior experience supporting payroll, financial, or regulated-industry applications

Soft Skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving mindset with a bias toward prevention over reaction
• Ability to communicate technical issues clearly to non-technical stakeholders
• Self-driven, able to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment
• Collaborative team player with a strong documentation discipline