Senior PostgreSQL DBA / Platform Engineer
Senior PostgreSQL Contractor Hands-on senior PostgreSQL contractor responsible for establishing enterprise database architecture, operational standards, HA/DR, backup/recovery, monitoring, performance, security, automation, lifecycle management, and knowledge transfer.
Key Responsibilities:
Assess and remediate enterprise PostgreSQL environments across DEV, TEST, PROD, and DR.Design and implement PostgreSQL reference architectures and standardized database builds.
Engineer and test HA using streaming replication, Patroni or equivalent, DCS quorum, HAProxy/service endpoints, PgBouncer, fencing, and failover/failback.
Implement pgBackRest or equivalent enterprise backup, WAL archiving, PITR, retention, encryption, and automated restore validation.
Design and test DR architectures, promotion/failback procedures, and RPO/RTO controls.
Implement monitoring and alerting for PostgreSQL, replication, WAL, autovacuum/XID, queries, locks, storage, backup, HA/DCS, DR, OS, and capacity.
Diagnose and tune SQL, execution plans, indexes, vacuum/bloat, memory, checkpoints, WAL, I/O, and concurrency.
Establish security/IAM, TLS, pg_hba, role/privilege, secrets, logging, pgAudit, and SIEM integration standards.
Lead minor patching and major-version upgrade planning/execution, including EOL remediation.
Automate builds and operations with Git, Ansible, Terraform, Python/shell, and CI/CD.Create runbooks, architecture diagrams, standards, operational procedures, and conduct knowledge transfer.
Required Qualifications:
EducationMinimum: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or a closely related technical field. Experience 8-10+ years in database administration with preferably 5+ years of substantial production PostgreSQL administration in enterprise environments. PostgreSQLStrong hands-on expertise with architecture, configuration, WAL, MVCC, VACUUM/autovacuum, XID wraparound, locking, query plans, indexing, partitioning, statistics, extensions, replication, upgrades, migration, and troubleshooting. HAHands-on Patroni or equivalent HA framework; etcd/Consul; streaming replication; HAProxy; PgBouncer; quorum, fencing, split-brain prevention, failover and failback.
Backup/Recoverypg:
BackRest; WAL archiving; PITR; full/differential/incremental backup; encryption; retention; large-database recovery and restore testing.
Monitoringpg_stat* views, pg_stat_statements, exporters/Prometheus/Grafana or enterprise monitoring, alerting, centralized logging and SIEM integration.
LinuxStrong RHEL/Linux skills including systemd, filesystem/LVM, networking, SELinux, firewall, kernel/sysctl, ulimits, storage/I/O diagnostics and shell scripting.
Automation:
Ansible, Git, Terraform, Python and/or shell, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, and automated database builds.
Operations:
Demonstrated 24x7 production troubleshooting, incident response, RCA, change management, performance analysis, patching and upgrade experience.
Preferred Qualifications:
Large enterprise or multi-TB PostgreSQL estates.
Mission-critical / 24x7 database services.
Client or enterprise virtualization and enterprise storage.
OpenShift/Kubernetes PostgreSQL experience.
Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migration experience.
Active Directory / enterprise IAM integration.
Regulated or critical-infrastructure environments.
Experience with EDB, Percona, Crunchy Data, or upstream PostgreSQL.Cloud PostgreSQL services and hybrid architectures.
PostgreSQL community contributions or relevant certifications.
Core Technical Competencies:
ArchitectureDesign resilient PostgreSQL services across compute, storage, network, HA, backup and DR layers.
Troubleshooting:
Diagnose failures across PostgreSQL, Linux, virtualization, storage and network boundaries.
Performance:
Use PostgreSQL statistics and EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS) to identify and remediate bottlenecks.
Recovery: Recover to latest state or precise PITR target and produce recovery evidence.
Automation:
Turn manual build/operations procedures into repeatable version-controlled automation.
Documentation:
Produce clear architecture, standards, runbooks, diagrams and operational handoff materials.
Communication:
Work effectively with DBAs, infrastructure, application, security, management and vendor support teams.
Practical Interview / Technical Evaluation:
- Primary PostgreSQL VM disappears at 2 AM.Capability Being Assessed: HA, failover, client routing, incident handling
- Patroni cannot reach the DCS while PostgreSQL remains running.
- Capability Being Assessed: Quorum, fencing, split-brain prevention
- Replica is significantly behind primary.
- Capability Being Assessed: Replication and WAL diagnosticspg_wal is filling the filesystem.
- Capability Being Assessed: Archive, replication slots, WAL and capacity troubleshooting
- Database approaches XID wraparound.
- Capability Being Assessed: MVCC, vacuum/freeze and emergency response
- Backup job is green. Prove the database is recoverable.
- Capability Being Assessed: Restore validation and recovery discipline
- Recover the database to a specific timestamp yesterday.
- Capability Being Assessed: PITRPrimary data center is unavailable.
- Capability Being Assessed: DR declaration, fencing, RPO/RTO, promotion and routingCPU rises from 30% to 95%.Capability Being Assessed: Performance troubleshooting
- Upgrade a multi-TB PostgreSQL database to a new major version.
- Capability Being Assessed: Upgrade architecture, downtime minimization and rollback
- Success Measures
- Documented and approved PostgreSQL standards.
- Production-ready HA, backup/PITR, DR and monitoring controls.
- Reduced manual configuration through automation.
- EOL/technical-debt remediation plan.
- Validated failure and recovery tests.
- Operational runbooks and dashboards adopted by internal teams.
- Successful knowledge transfer with no contractor-only operational dependency.
Shift:
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