Database Administrator (DBA)

Database Administrator (DBA) — Job Description

Summary

• Responsible for the design, implementation, maintenance, performance, and security of an organization’s databases to ensure high availability, integrity, and optimal performance.

Core responsibilities

• Database administration: Install, configure, upgrade, and maintain database servers (e.g., Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB).
• Performance tuning: Monitor and optimize database performance (queries, indexing, storage, configuration); perform capacity planning.
• Backup & recovery: Design and manage backup, restore, and disaster recovery strategies; test failover procedures.
• High availability & replication: Implement and manage HA solutions (clustering, replication, log shipping) and ensure minimal downtime.
• Security & compliance: Manage database security (roles, permissions, encryption), audit access, and ensure compliance with regulations and policies.
• Data integrity & maintenance: Maintain schema design, data modeling, referential integrity, partitioning, and routine maintenance (rebuilds, statistics, vacuuming).
• Monitoring & alerting: Configure monitoring, alerts, and automated remediation for database health, storage, and performance.
• Automation & scripting: Develop scripts and automation for deployments, maintenance tasks, and routine housekeeping (Bash, PowerShell, Python).
• Patch management: Apply patches and upgrades with minimal disruption; coordinate maintenance windows.
• Troubleshooting & support: Diagnose and resolve incidents, work with developers/ops on root cause, and provide database expertise for applications and projects.
• Capacity & cost management: Track resource usage, forecast growth, and optimize costs (cloud resources, licensing).
• Documentation & standards: Maintain runbooks, runbooks, runbooks; develop and enforce database standards and best practices.
• Mentorship & collaboration: Advise development teams on query design, schema changes, and deployment best practices; mentor junior DBAs.

Typical duties (day-to-day)

• Monitor database performance and alerts; investigate anomalies.
• Review and apply patches, security updates, and configuration changes.
• Respond to incidents, run diagnostics, and implement fixes or workarounds.
• Perform backups, restores, and periodic DR tests.
• Tune slow queries and work with developers on indexing and schema improvements.
• Provision new database instances and manage access controls.
• Run capacity planning and storage reclamation tasks.
• Update documentation, change logs, and maintenance schedules.
• Participate in on-call rotations and post-incident reviews.
• Support database-related deployments and migrations (on-prem → cloud, version upgrades).

Required qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• Experience: 3–5+ years DBA experience; senior roles often require 5–8+ years.
• Technical skills: Strong experience with one or more RDBMS (e.g., Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL) and familiarity with NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB, Cassandra) where relevant.
• Tools & platforms: Experience with backup tools, monitoring systems (Prometheus, Datadog, SolarWinds), automation/configuration management (Ansible, Terraform), and cloud databases (RDS, Aurora, Azure SQL, Cloud Spanner).
• Languages: Proficient in SQL and comfortable scripting in Bash, PowerShell, or Python.
• Knowledge: Storage systems, OS tuning (Linux/Windows), networking basics, and database internals (locking, transactions, indexing).
• Certifications (optional): Oracle OCP, Microsoft MCSA/MCSE, AWS/Azure/GCP database certifications, or PostgreSQL certifications.
• Soft skills: Strong problem-solving, communication, and ability to work under pressure.

Preferred attributes

• Experience with database architecture design, sharding, and multi-region deployments.
• Familiarity with CI/CD for database changes and schema migration tools (Flyway, Liquibase).
• Experience optimizing cloud cost and using managed services.
• Strong mentoring and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: QAR84.23 - QAR145.23 per hour

Work Location: In person