Senior Database Consultant

Summary

Join Pythian, a leading provider of strategic database and analytics services, as a Senior Database Consultant. You will be part of a team providing comprehensive support for database and application infrastructure to diverse clients. Your responsibilities will include presales activities, delivery and consulting for managed services customers, and thought leadership. You will be responsible for all aspects of client service, including analysis, design, implementation, and administration of IT solutions, ensuring optimal database performance and uptime. You will also oversee backup procedures, disaster recovery plans, and proactive monitoring to prevent potential issues. Additionally, you will develop and maintain complex data architectures, manage incident management, and contribute to team training and knowledge base development.

Requirements

• Knowledge and experience in installing, configuring and upgrading PostgreSQL databases & tools relevant in PostgreSQL Administration
• Experience administering PostgreSQL in virtualized and cloud environments, especially AWS, GCP or Azure
• Experience with scripting (bash/python) and software development (C++, Java, Go)
• Automation technologies such as Ansible, Terraform, Puppet, Chef, SALT experience
• Debugging skills and the ability to troubleshoot methodically, identifying and applying fixes for known errors, and when necessary, capacity to think outside of the box to resolve complex issues
• Very good documentation skills
• Experience with High Availability (HA) solutions for PostgreSQL, including Patroni, and repmgr, is required
• The candidate should be proficient in configuring and managing automated failover, replication, and cluster health monitoring to ensure database resilience and minimal downtime
• Experience with PostgreSQL backup tools, including Barman, pgBackRest, pg_basebackup, etc. is required
• The candidate should be proficient in configuring full, incremental, and differential backups, as well as managing Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) and WAL archiving for disaster recovery
• Experience in database migrations from different database engines, including Oracle, MySQL, and MSSQL, to PostgreSQL
• Using migration tools such as ora2pg, AWS/GCP/Azure Database Migration Services (DMS), and other CDC-based techniques to ensure a smooth transition with minimal downtime
• Experience migrating between on-premises and cloud-based databases
• Experience analyzing and optimizing schema conversions, SQL compatibility issues, and performance tuning post-migration

Responsibilities

• Provides all aspects of client service generally associated with Database Consultants (DBC) such as the coordination, analysis, design, implementation, and administration of IT solutions, including database server configuration and maintenance
• Analyzes client’s infrastructure and processes and recommends to clients, as appropriate, best practices for improvements to current operational processes and procedures to ensure that databases remain operational for maximum uptime and are recoverable
• Provides administration of backup procedures and disaster recovery plans, provides proactive monitoring to head off potential issues before they become incidents, responds to monitoring alerts, and carries out troubleshooting of operational problems
• Oversees backup, clustering, mirroring, replication, failover, and restoration and recovery of corrupted databases, develops and reviews action plans (such as maintenance, deployment, upgrades, etc.), and completes all relevant client documentation
• Develops a thorough understanding of all relevant client information including warnings, handoffs, briefing notes, etc
• Develops, implements and maintains complex data architectures such as normalized and/or dimensional data models and DDL generation; carries out transformation and migration of data through scripts or stored procedures
• Owns Problem Management whereby incidents are assessed for any recurring patterns, designs technical procedures for regular requests/changes, develops and reviews action plans (such as maintenance, deployment, upgrades, etc) and associated documentation
• Provides technical oversight of Incident Management to the team members and assists team members in the design of technical procedures for complex scheduled changes to ensure that best practices are being used
• Assists the Team Manager in reviewing the team's work for quality and adherence to technical processes and standards, and in overseeing client capacity and change management
• Makes, manages and meets client commitments in conjunction with fellow team members
• Prepares client status and incident reports, reviews client reports on a recurring basis, responds to client requests and enquiries, and maintains alignment with a client’s operating procedures
• Takes on technical client affinity as assigned by the Team Manager, aligns to client operating procedures as required, e.g., change control, follows hourly requirements of client allotments and alerts Team Manager to any pacing concerns
• Participates in and, at times, takes on a leadership role in suggesting, recommending and possibly designing/implementing new monitoring checks, enhancements to DBC toolkits, and other process improvements such as Initial Reviews, Performance Reviews, Audits, etc., especially but not limited to those that increase the value of the service that Pythian brings to its clients
• As agreed upon with Sales and with the approval of one’s manager, participates in pre-sales activities such as proposal preparation and tech calls, as well as pre-sales visits to client sites on an occasional basis, as required
• Takes on a leadership role in the help and mentoring of team members
• Participates in the preparation and presentation of employee training courses or wiki material for the enhancement of Pythian’s knowledge base, as agreed upon with one’s manager
• Be available for 24/7 escalations from the DBC team

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous remote working experience is a plus
• Understanding of current IT service standards such as ITIL
• Being a contributor to projects relevant to PostgreSQL, or other database or infrastructure software
• Hands-on experience in monitoring PostgreSQL databases using industry-standard tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, SolarWinds, pgAdmin, Zabbix, Nagios and Datadog
• Experience with cloud-native and managed database monitoring tools, including AWS CloudWatch, Google Cloud Operations (Stackdriver), and Azure Monitor
• This includes configuring monitoring solutions, analyzing performance metrics, setting up alerts, and troubleshooting database issues in cloud environments
• Nice to have experience in setting up, configuring, and administering PostgreSQL on Kubernetes
• Additionally, experience with EnterpriseDB (EDB) solutions, such as EDB Postgres Distributed (PGD) for multi-master replication and EDB BigAnimal for managed PostgreSQL in the cloud, would be highly beneficial
• Familiarity with automatic failover strategies, consensus-based leader election, and cloud-based database resilience is a plus
• Experience with Debezium and Striim is not mandatory but beneficial

Benefits

• Love your career : Competitive total rewards package
• Blog during work hours; take a day off and volunteer for your favorite charity
• Love your work/life balance : Flexibly work remotely from your home, there’s no daily travel requirement to an office!
• All you need is a stable internet connection
• Love your coworkers : Collaborate with some of the best and brightest in the industry!
• Love your development : Hone your skills or learn new ones with our substantial training allowance; participate in professional development days, attend training, become certified, whatever you like!
• Love your workspace : We give you all the equipment you need to work from home including a laptop with your choice of OS, and an annual budget to personalize your work environment!
• Love yourself : Pythian cares about the health and well-being of our team
• You will have an annual wellness budget to make yourself a priority (use it on gym memberships, massages, fitness and more)
• Additionally, you will receive a generous amount of paid vacation and sick days, as well as a day off to volunteer for your favorite charity