Database Administrator / Database Engineer

Employment Type: Full-time | Location: Gurugram, Haryana | Experience: 4–6 Years (Senior Level)

About the Role We are looking for a hands-on, senior Database Administrator/Engineer to take full ownership of our core production database — currently ~22 crore (220 million+) rows of high-volume transactional data — and turn it around from an unoptimized, slow-performing state into a fast, well-organized system built to scale. This is a from-the-ground-up mandate: the successful candidate will audit, redesign, and optimize the database from scratch, put robust security in place against both internal misuse and external (black-hat) attacks, and establish the operational discipline needed to support a continuously growing dataset that is currently hosted on local, on-premise servers.

Key Responsibilities 1. Performance Optimization — From the Ground Up • Conduct a full audit of the existing ~22 crore-row database to identify the root causes of slow data retrieval • Design and implement an indexing strategy from scratch (composite, partial, and covering indexes as appropriate) • Implement table partitioning (date-wise/region-wise or by other relevant keys) on large transactional tables • Identify and rewrite slow or inefficient queries; analyze execution plans (EXPLAIN/EXPLAIN ANALYZE) to guide tuning • Set up materialized views, query caching, and connection pooling to reduce load on live systems • Design a hot/cold data strategy — archive historical data without affecting live query performance • Define schema design standards to prevent future performance regressions as new features are added

2. Scalability for Continuous Data Growth • Build and own a scalability roadmap for a continuously growing dataset (well beyond the current ~22 crore rows) • Plan vertical scaling of current infrastructure and evaluate horizontal scaling options (read replicas, sharding) as volumes grow • Set up read-replica architecture, load distribution, and connection pooling for high-concurrency access • Run periodic capacity planning — forecast storage and compute needs based on growth trends • Advise on future hybrid/cloud migration options if on-premise scaling reaches its practical limits

3. Security — Protecting Against Internal & External Threats • Design and enforce role-based access control (RBAC) and least-privilege access across all internal database users • Set up internal audit logging and access-pattern monitoring to detect misuse or insider threats • Harden the database and underlying Linux server infrastructure against external attacks — firewall rules, network segmentation, secure remote access (VPN/bastion), SSH hardening • Implement encryption at rest and in transit for all sensitive data and PII • Run regular vulnerability assessments and stay ahead of patching to close known exploits before they can be used against the system • Implement data masking/anonymization for PII in any non-production environment • Set up anomaly and intrusion alerting for unusual database access patterns • Ensure ongoing compliance with the DPDP Act, 2023 (and other applicable data protection regulations) • Own the database-side incident response plan in the event of a security incident or breach attempt

4. On-Premise Infrastructure Ownership • Manage and maintain database servers hosted on local, on-premise infrastructure (Linux) • Own OS-level hardening, patching, and resource tuning for DB-hosting servers • Set up automated backups, disaster recovery, and failover procedures — and run periodic DR drills to confirm they actually work • Plan hardware capacity upgrades in line with data growth

5. Operations, Documentation & Governance • Set up monitoring/alerting (Prometheus/Grafana or equivalent) for performance, disk usage, replication lag, and security anomalies • Maintain schema changes under version control using migration tools (Flyway/Liquibase or equivalent) • Maintain clear documentation — architecture diagrams, runbooks, security policies, and DR plans • Define uptime/performance SLAs and an on-call/escalation process for critical incidents • Review and sign off on all database-impacting code changes before deployment • Partner with development and infrastructure teams on data governance and retention policies

Required Skills & Experience • 4–6 years of hands-on experience as a DBA/Database Engineer, including direct experience optimizing large-scale (100 million+ row) production databases — ideally including at least one “turnaround” of a slow, unoptimized system • Strong, in-depth expertise in PostgreSQL or MySQL (PostgreSQL preferred, especially for geospatial/time-series workloads) — deep enough to redesign schemas and indexing strategy, not just maintain them • Demonstrated track record in query optimization, indexing strategy, and partitioning at scale • Solid understanding of database and OS-level (Linux) security: RBAC, encryption, network hardening, vulnerability management, and audit logging • Direct experience securing systems against real external threats — not just general security awareness • Hands-on experience managing on-premise server infrastructure (this is not a managed cloud-database role) • Experience with backup/replication/DR tools (pg_basebackup, WAL-G, mysqldump, or equivalent) • Experience handling PII/sensitive data in line with data protection regulations (DPDP Act or equivalent) • Scripting ability (Python/Bash) for automation of DB maintenance and monitoring tasks • Comfortable with high-throughput, real-time data ingestion (Kafka/message queues) as data volume grows

Certifications (Applies to the primary database technology the candidate specializes in — PostgreSQL or MySQL)

Certification RHCSA or RHCE (Linux server management; essential for on-premises database hosting) —

Required PostgreSQL Certified Professional / EDB Certified Associate , or

Oracle MySQL Database Administrator —

Required CompTIA Security+ or an equivalent cybersecurity certification —

Strongly Preferred Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) or equivalent security/penetration testing experience —

Good to Have AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Database Specialty Certification (for hybrid/cloud migration readiness) —

Preferred CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator) —

Good to Have Good to Have • Proven experience turning around a legacy or unoptimized production database — exactly the situation here • Background in high-volume, transaction-heavy systems (fintech, logistics, e-commerce, telecom, IoT, or smart city) • Experience with schema migration tooling and data governance frameworks

• End-to-end ownership of on-premise infrastructure security in a previous role