Database Engineer (DBA)

Role Overview  

We are looking for a Database Engineer to help run and improve our database platform.  

Our estate runs on Google Cloud Platform following a recent migration to self-managed services. There is plenty still to do in the next phase of modernising the estate, and you will be hands-on in that work as well as in the day-to-day running of the platform.  

You will work alongside a small team of database engineers and closely with engineering and infrastructure teams, keeping our database environments secure, reliable and performant. There is real scope to grow here, and you will be supported to deepen your technical expertise and take on more as you do.  

The role participates in a rotating on-call rota and occasionally requires out-of-hours work to support deployments, maintenance or incident response.  

Key Responsibilities  

Database administration  

Install, configure, maintain and upgrade PostgreSQL and SQL Server environments across development, test and production  

Ensure database servers are securely configured, patched and compliant with operational standards  

Own backup, restore and maintenance strategies, and test recovery procedures regularly  

Maintain database security, access control and auditing practices  

Cloud and infrastructure  

Deploy and manage database environments in Google Cloud Platform, using Compute Engine instances or managed services such as Cloud SQL where appropriate  

Configure networking, storage and security controls for cloud-hosted database systems  

Support the remaining on-premise footprint and the realities of running a hybrid estate  

Modernisation  

Contribute to migration and consolidation work across the estate, covering schema and code conversion, data migration, testing and cutover  

Help shape and deliver the next phase of modernisation across the estate  

Bring ideas forward: if you think there is a better way to do something, we want to hear it  

Resilience and performance  

Build and maintain high availability and disaster recovery solutions, including replication  

Identify and resolve performance issues, and work with development teams on query, indexing and schema design  

Maintain monitoring and alerting so problems are caught proactively rather than reported by users  

Automation and change  

Automate provisioning, patching, backups and routine maintenance  

Keep all scripts, configuration and database change in GitHub, delivered through CI/CD pipelines and proper change management  

Contribute to database standards, runbooks and documentation  

Operational support  

Participate in the rotating on-call rota supporting production systems  

Provide day-to-day support to engineering and infrastructure teams  

Take part in incident response and post-incident review  

Skills and Experience  

Essential  

PostgreSQL (core requirement):  solid production administration experience covering configuration, upgrades, backup and recovery, replication and basic performance tuning  

Microsoft SQL Server:  production administration including availability groups, backups, patching and maintenance  

SQL:  able to write and optimise complex queries and read an execution plan  

Google Cloud Platform:  deploying and managing database infrastructure in GCP (Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, storage, networking, IAM)  

High availability and disaster recovery:  supporting HA/DR architectures and replication technologies  

Backup and recovery:  strong understanding of strategies and hands-on restore experience  

GitHub and CI/CD:  working with source control day to day and comfortable with change management in a production environment  

Automation:  scripting in Python, PowerShell or Bash to remove manual toil  

Monitoring and alerting:  using enterprise tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, Cloud Monitoring or equivalent  

On-call:  willing to join a rotating rota and handle production incidents  

Communication:  clear written and verbal communication, and effective collaboration with engineering teams  

Desirable  

Migration experience:  moving production workloads between database engines  

Couchbase  or comparable NoSQL / document-store experience  

CockroachDB  or other distributed SQL platforms  

Infrastructure as code:  Terraform or Ansible  

Database CI/CD tooling:  Flyway, Liquibase or Redgate  

On-premise infrastructure:  servers, storage, networking, virtualisation  

Kafka or streaming platforms  

Relevant certifications  [if relevant]  

You as a Person  

You are curious and like learning.  The estate is changing, and you are keen to go deep in technologies that may not be your strongest today  

You challenge constructively.  If something looks wrong or inefficient, you say so, with evidence and without waiting for permission  

You want room to grow.  We have a culture that supports people stretching beyond their job description. If something interesting sits adjacent to your role, you will be encouraged to get involved rather than told it belongs to someone else  

You are methodical.  Production databases reward care: you test, you document, and you think about the restore before the backup  

You communicate well with people who are not database engineers.  You can explain what happened and why in terms a developer or a stakeholder can act on  

You are a dependable teammate.  On-call only works when people look after each other, and you take that seriously  

 

THG Ingenuity is proud to be a Disability Confident Committed employer. If you are invited to interview, please let us know if there are any reasonable adjustments we can make to the recruitment process that will enable you to perform to the best of your ability.

THG Ingenuity is committed to creating a diverse & inclusive environment and hence welcomes applications from all sections of the community.

Because of the high volumes of applications our opportunities attract, it sometimes takes us time to review and consider them all. We endeavour to respond to every application we receive within 14 days. If you haven't heard from us within that time frame or should you have any specific questions about this or other applications for positions at THG Ingenuity please contact one of our Talent team to discuss further.

 

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