Database Administrator

Job Description :

The Database Administrator - Migration Specialist owns the database-related aspects of complex platforms, infrastructure, and application migration programs.

The role is accountable for planning, configuring, validating, and executing database replication and data movement activities across source and target environments.

Working closely with application, cloud, infrastructure, security, and testing teams, the specialist ensures data integrity, operational readiness, controlled cutover, and minimal downtime for data-tier workloads.

The individual provides hands-on technical leadership throughout discovery, design, rehearsal, migration execution, validation, and post-cutover stabilization.

Career Level Summary :

- Works as a senior individual contributor and subject matter expert for database migration, replication, and cutover activities.

- Independently owns complex technical workstreams, assesses risk, and recommends practical migration approaches.

- Applies deep database administration expertise across heterogeneous environments and high-availability workloads.

- Coordinates technical dependencies across multiple teams and communicates clearly with customer and internal stakeholders.

- Mentors engineers, establishes repeatable practices, and drives quality through documentation, automation, and governance.

Critical Competencies :

- Expertise : Applies advanced knowledge of database platforms, replication technologies, data movement, backup and recovery, and performance engineering.

- Agility : Adapts migration plans quickly in response to test findings, changing constraints, and live cutover conditions.

- Risk ownership : Identifies data-tier risks early, defines mitigations, and maintains clear escalation and rollback paths.

Key Responsibilities :

- Own the end-to-end database migration workstream, from discovery and assessment through cutover and post-migration stabilization.

- Assess source and target database environments, including versions, editions, topology, size, growth, dependencies, compatibility, performance, availability, security, and recovery requirements.

- Define the database migration strategy and select the appropriate online, near online, or offline data movement approach based on workload criticality, downtime tolerance, data volume, network capacity, and platform constraints.

- Design, configure, monitor, troubleshoot, and validate database replication between source and target environments.

- Plan and execute full loads, incremental synchronization, change data capture, log-based replication, backup and restore, export and import, or native migration utilities as appropriate to the platform.

- Build detailed data move runbooks covering prerequisites, sequencing, ownership, checkpoints, decision gates, validation, rollback, escalation, and recovery procedures.

- Lead migration rehearsals and production cutovers, ensuring replication lag, transaction consistency, application quiescence, final synchronization, endpoint changes, and database availability are controlled.

- Ensure data integrity before, during, and after migration through row counts, checksums, reconciliation queries, object validation, referential integrity checks, and application-led business validation.

- Minimize downtime for data-tier workloads by optimizing transfer methods, pre-staging data, tuning replication, parallelizing safe activities, and coordinating precise cutover sequencing.

- Establish cutover entry and exit criteria, rollback triggers, recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives, and acceptance evidence in partnership with program stakeholders.

- Validate database objects and services, including schemas, tables, indexes, constraints, sequences, stored procedures, functions, views, jobs, users, roles, permissions, links, extensions, and scheduled tasks.

- Tune source and target databases for migration throughput while protecting production workload stability and avoiding unacceptable customer impact.

- Monitor database health, capacity, storage, locks, blocking, replication latency, transaction logs, error logs, and performance indicators throughout the migration lifecycle.

- Coordinate firewall, connectivity, DNS, certificates, encryption, secrets, service accounts, access controls, and security approvals required for database movement.

- Partner with application teams to identify connection strings, drivers, ORM dependencies, transaction behaviour, compatibility issues, and application restart or validation requirements.

- Provide accurate status, risk, issue, dependency, and readiness reporting to technical and program leadership.

- Document migration designs, configuration decisions, operational procedures, evidence, lessons learned, and handover information.

- Automate repeatable assessment, validation, monitoring, and migration tasks using scripting and infrastructure or configuration automation where appropriate.

- Support post-cutover hypercare, troubleshoot data or performance issues, complete handover to operations, and contribute to post-implementation review.

Knowledge :

- Deep knowledge of relational database architecture, administration, high availability, disaster recovery, backup and recovery, security, and performance tuning.

- Strong understanding of replication patterns, transaction consistency, change capture, conflict handling, latency, failover, and resynchronization.

- Understanding migration patterns across on-premises, cloud, hosted, virtualized, and managed database environments.

- Knowledge of data integrity controls, migration validation techniques, cutover governance, rollback planning, and operational acceptance.

Skills :

- Advanced administration of one or more enterprise database platforms such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, or MySQL.

- Hands-on expertise in database replication and data move activities using native or third-party migration technologies.

- Experience with technologies such as SQL Server Always On, transactional replication, log shipping, Oracle Data Guard or GoldenGate, PostgreSQL streaming or logical replication, MySQL replication, or equivalent platform capabilities.

- Proficiency in backup and restore, export and import, bulk data transfer, schema conversion, change data capture, and incremental synchronization techniques.

- Ability to analyze database size, transaction rate, network throughput, replication lag, maintenance windows, and downtime constraints to produce an executable migration plan.

- Strong SQL and scripting capability using PowerShell, Python, Bash, or equivalent tools for automation, validation, monitoring, and reporting.

- Experience with cloud database services and migration tooling across AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud is preferred.

- Expertise in performance tuning, indexing, query analysis, capacity management, storage planning, and database observability.

- Working knowledge of encryption in transit and at rest, identity and access management, privileged access, secrets management, audit controls, and data protection practices.

- Strong troubleshooting, root cause analysis, technical documentation, stakeholder management, and communication skills.

- Demonstrated experience migrating business-critical or high-volume databases with stringent data integrity and downtime requirements.

- Experience leading migration rehearsals, go-live cutovers, rollback planning, hypercare, and operational handover.

Education :

- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field required, or an equivalent combination of education, relevant technical certifications, and practical experience.

Certifications :

- Database platform certification from Microsoft, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, or equivalent is preferred.

- Cloud database or architecture certification from AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud is preferred.

- ITIL, DevOps, automation, or security certification are an advantage.

Experience :

- Minimum 6 - 10 years of experience in database administration, including significant hands-on responsibility for production database environments

Skills

DBA, DB, Database Performance Tuning, Database Design, Troubleshooting, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Python, Bash Scripting