Database Administrator (Senior)

Database Administrator (Senior)

Oracle to Cloud PostgreSQL & Databricks Migration

Location: Ashburn, VA / Hybrid / Remote

Employment Type: Full-Time

Clearance: U.S. Citizenship required; must be able to obtain and maintain a CBP Investigation (BI)

Position Summary

We are seeking a Database Administrator to support a federal client through a significant modernization effort. Today the environment is a production Oracle estate; over the life of this program, substantial portions of it are moving to managed cloud PostgreSQL and to Databricks for analytics. This is not a steady-state caretaker role. You will keep the existing Oracle systems healthy and performant while simultaneously planning, executing, and validating the movement of that data into the cloud.

The ideal candidate is, above all, exceptionally good with data. We care that you can reason rigorously about data structure, integrity, movement, and performance. The specific engines are learnable; that judgment is not. Deep Oracle experience is what the current environment demands, and PostgreSQL and Databricks are where it is going, so exposure to all three is ideal. Strong candidates who are missing one of them are still encouraged to apply.

 

This requisition is approved at the Senior level. For an exceptional candidate, we are willing to fill it at the Mid level.

Key ResponsibilitiesOracle Database Administration

• Administer production Oracle databases (19c or later): installation, configuration, patching, and upgrades


• Own backup and recovery using RMAN; design, document, and regularly test restore procedures


• Configure and maintain high-availability and disaster-recovery architectures, including Data Guard, RAC, and ASM


• Diagnose and resolve performance problems through execution plan analysis, AWR/ASH review, indexing and partitioning strategy, and SQL tuning


• Perform capacity planning, storage management, and proactive monitoring and alerting

Cloud Migration

• Plan and execute the migration of Oracle schemas and workloads to managed cloud PostgreSQL, including data type mapping, PL/SQL conversion, and cutover sequencing


• Evaluate and apply migration tooling such as GoldenGate, AWS DMS/SCT, or Ora2Pg, and recommend the right approach per workload


• Design and execute reconciliation and validation between source and target — row counts, checksums, referential integrity, and business-rule verification — so that every cutover is provably correct


• Develop rollback plans and minimize downtime windows for production cutovers


• Administer and tune PostgreSQL in the cloud post-migration: vacuum and autovacuum strategy, connection pooling, replication, and parameter tuning

ETL / Data Pipelines

• Build, support, and troubleshoot ETL/ELT pipelines moving operational data into Databricks and Delta Lake for analytics consumption


• Partner with data engineering on ingestion patterns, incremental and change-data-capture loads, and partitioning and file layout for query performance


• Monitor pipeline health, resolve data quality issues at the source, and maintain data lineage documentation

Data Architecture & Governance

• Perform logical and physical data modeling; review and advise on schema changes proposed by application teams


• Implement database security controls: encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access control, auditing, and data masking for non-production environments


• Apply and maintain federal security hardening requirements, including applicable DISA STIGs and NIST 800-53 controls


• Produce runbooks, migration playbooks, architecture diagrams, and documentation supporting ATO and audit artifacts


• Support incident response and root cause analysis for data-related production issues

Required Qualifications

• U.S. Citizenship (required — no exceptions, per contract)


• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Customs Background Investigation (BI)


• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical field


• Eight (8) or more years of hands-on database administration experience in production environments (Senior level); Five (5) or more years will be considered for the Mid level


• Demonstrated depth in Oracle administration — backup and recovery, performance tuning, and high availability — or equivalent depth in another enterprise RDBMS at comparable scale


• Advanced SQL, including the ability to read and interpret execution plans


• Working proficiency in PL/SQL or an equivalent procedural database language


• Demonstrated experience migrating, replicating, or synchronizing large datasets between systems


• Scripting proficiency for automation (Python, Bash, or equivalent)


• Clear written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to non-technical stakeholders

Education substitution: A Master’s degree plus five (5) years, or an Associate’s degree plus ten (10) years, or twelve (12) years of directly relevant professional experience, may be substituted for the Bachelor’s degree requirement.

Preferred Qualifications

• PostgreSQL administration, particularly managed cloud offerings (Amazon RDS/Aurora, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, or Cloud SQL)


• Databricks, Apache Spark, and Delta Lake; familiarity with medallion (bronze/silver/gold) architecture


• Hands-on experience with Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migration tooling (GoldenGate, AWS DMS/SCT, Ora2Pg)


• Orchestration and transformation tooling: Airflow, dbt, AWS Glue, Azure Data Factory, Informatica, or NiFi


• Database change management and CI/CD (Liquibase or Flyway) and infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible)


• Prior work in a FedRAMP, GovCloud, or other federal cloud environment


• Experience supporting DHS, CBP, or comparable federal customers


• Familiarity with data warehousing and dimensional modeling concepts


• Relevant certifications: Oracle Certified Professional (OCP), AWS/Azure database specialty, or Databricks Certified Data Engineer

What We Are Really Looking For

The bullets above describe the environment. This section describes the person. If the list below sounds like you, apply even if your résumé does not check every box above.

• You are fluent in data itself. You reason about cardinality, skew, distribution, consistency, and lineage independent of which engine sits underneath.


• You can read an execution plan and explain why the optimizer made the choice it made — and what you would change so it makes a better one.


• You treat data correctness as non-negotiable. You design verification into a migration from the beginning rather than discovering problems after cutover.


• You have learned a new database engine on the job before, under real deadline pressure, and you are ready to do it again.


• You are comfortable operating in a legacy environment and a modern cloud environment on the same day, without treating either one with contempt.


• You document your work, because the next person to get paged at 2 a.m. may not be you.

About SDA

Systems Development and Analysis, Inc. (SDA) has decades of success making system concepts an operational reality for agencies on the front lines of homeland security, law enforcement and national defense. We are focused on our clients’ missions and hold ourselves accountable for their operational success. We operate with independence and integrity so that we can provide unfettered advice. By understanding and appreciating their world, we earn the trust to innovate and apply leading edge technology on behalf of our clients.

SDA is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. SDA is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.