About the role
- Architect and execute migration strategies for moving SQL Server, Oracle, and other heterogeneous databases to PostgreSQL / Aurora PostgreSQL with minimal downtime.
- Design target PostgreSQL architectures including instance sizing, storage layout, replication topologies, and high-availability configurations.
- Plan and implement migration cutover strategies in coordination with application, DBA, and platform teams; ensure rollback capabilities are validated.
- Evaluate and recommend migration tooling (AWS DMS, SCT, pg_dump/pg_restore, Bucardo, pglogical) based on workload characteristics and downtime tolerance.
- Install, configure, and manage PostgreSQL instances across development, staging, and production environments (self-managed and AWS RDS/Aurora).
- Implement and manage streaming replication, logical replication, and failover mechanisms (Patroni, repmgr, or Aurora native failover).
- Perform routine maintenance: vacuum tuning, autovacuum optimization, bloat monitoring, index maintenance, and major version upgrades.
- Manage backup and disaster recovery strategies using pgBackRest, Barman, WAL archiving, and cross-region snapshot replication.
- Monitor and optimize PostgreSQL performance at the OS and database level: I/O throughput, memory allocation (shared_buffers, work_mem, effective_cache_size), connection pooling (PgBouncer), and lock contention.
- Analyze slow queries in collaboration with development teams, recommend configuration changes, partitioning strategies, and hardware scaling.
- Tune Aurora PostgreSQL-specific parameters and leverage Optimized Reads/Writes where applicable.
- Conduct capacity planning and forecast infrastructure needs based on workload growth trends.
- Harden PostgreSQL environments: enforce SSL/TLS, configure role-based access control (RBAC), implement row-level security (RLS), and manage secrets via AWS Secrets Manager or HashiCorp Vault.
- Ensure compliance with organizational security policies, data retention requirements, and audit mandates (pgAudit, CloudTrail).
- Manage encryption at rest and in transit; oversee key rotation procedures.
- Review and approve database changes for security impact; enforce least-privilege access principles.
- Automate operational tasks using shell scripts, Python, Ansible, Terraform, or AWS CloudFormation.
- Deploy and maintain monitoring and alerting stacks (CloudWatch, Prometheus/Grafana, Datadog, pg_stat_statements, pgBadger).
- Provide L2/L3 operational support, lead incident response for database outages, replication lag, and performance degradations.
- Develop and maintain runbooks, operational standards, and disaster recovery playbooks.
- Partner with development teams to enforce database standards and review schema changes for operational impact.
- Mentor internal teams on PostgreSQL administration best practices, migration considerations, and cloud-native database operations.
- Document architecture decisions, operational procedures, and migration runbooks.
- 4+ years of experience in database administration, with at least 3 years focused on PostgreSQL in production environments.
- Proven track record in large-scale, heterogeneous migrations (SQL Server → PostgreSQL/Aurora PostgreSQL or similar).
- Strong proficiency in:
- PostgreSQL internals: WAL, MVCC, vacuum mechanics, buffer management, query planner
- High availability: streaming replication, logical replication, Patroni, repmgr
- Backup & recovery: pgBackRest, Barman, point-in-time recovery (PITR)
- Linux system administration relevant to PostgreSQL (tuning kernel parameters, filesystems, I/O schedulers)
- AWS RDS/Aurora operations, IAM, VPC networking, security groups, and parameter groups
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible) and CI/CD pipelines for database changes.
- Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools: CloudWatch, Prometheus/Grafana, Datadog, pg_stat_statements, pgBadger.
- Exposure to other database platforms (Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server) for cross-platform migration support.
- Experience with database DevOps practices: GitOps, schema drift detection, automated testing (e.g., tSQLt equivalents, pgTAP).
- Knowledge of Kubernetes operators for PostgreSQL (CloudNativePG, Zalando Postgres Operator).
- AWS Certified Database – Specialty or EDB PostgreSQL professional certifications.
- Experience with pgBouncer connection pooling, pgpool-II, or similar middleware.
- Familiarity with event streaming integrations (Debezium, Kafka) for CDC and real-time data pipelines.