Database Administrator

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting  

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role ID -C004970

Role Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage installation, configuration, upgrades, and backups of database systems and related products both on-premises and in the cloud
• Design, develop, and maintain data collection, transformation, and integration processes across multiple on-premises and cloud RDBMS platforms
• Monitor database performance, availability, and capacity, proactively identifying and resolving issues to ensure optimal service delivery.
• Develop and manage automation tools, scripts, and workflows for database administration, monitoring, maintenance, and operational reporting.
• Produce dynamic reports and standardized templates to support database configuration management, performance monitoring, and lifecycle tracking;
• Support database migrations and modernization initiatives involving Azure and other cloud database services.
• Collaborate with application, infrastructure, and cloud engineering teams to ensure optimal database performance, reliability, and scalability.
• Establish and maintain data governance and quality standards within reporting and integration processes;
• Stay current with database technology roadmaps, contributing to continuous improvement of lifecycle management, security, and data reliability.
• Produce and maintain technical documentation, operational procedures, architectural designs, and support runbooks

Essential Skills, Experience and Certifications

• Expert-level knowledge and hands-on experience with Microsoft SQL Server administration, development, performance tuning, troubleshooting, and optimization.
• Strong experience designing, implementing, and supporting High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) solutions including:
  • Always On Availability Groups
  • Failover Clustering
  • Replication
  • Backup and Recovery strategies
• Experience managing databases across cloud platforms, preferably Microsoft Azure (Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Virtual Machines)
• Experience on administering and supporting open-source database technologies including PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB.
• Experience with NoSQL database technologies, preferably MongoDB
• Proficiency in database automation and scripting using PowerShell, T-SQL, and/or Python.
• Strong understanding of relational database design, normalization, indexing strategies, query optimization, and capacity planning
• Experience implementing Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, and database deployment automation practices
• Skilled in containerized and virtualized environments.
• Strong understanding of database monitoring, observability, and performance management tools.
• Ensures data quality, consistency, and governance across integrated systems, following organizational data standards and compliance requirements;
• Implements secure database management practices, including access control, encryption, auditing, and vulnerability management.
• Lead technical investigations, root cause analysis, and resolution of complex database incidents and problems

Working Location

• Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium

Working Policy

• On-site

Travel

• Up to 100 TDY's per year in Belgium

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance