Senior Principal Database Administrator & Team Lead

About the Role

We are seeking an exceptionally skilled Senior Principal Oracle Database Administrator & Team Lead with 10 to 15 years of hands-on experience driving enterprise-grade database architecture, high availability, and data replication strategy.

In this high-impact role, you will manage mission-critical database platforms, architect robust high-volume data replication pipelines using enterprise tools (HVR/HVA/CDC/Fivetran), enforce stringent SOC/security compliance standards, and drive operational excellence through Linux-level OS patching, Oracle Release Update (RU) and Monthly Release Patches lifecycles.

Additionally, you will serve as a Team Leader, currently leading a team of 5 to 10 DBA resourcesguiding operational execution, technical strategy, and incident escalation pathways. Expertise in PostgreSQL is a strong plus as we continue to evolve our multi-engine database ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

1. Team Leadership & Operational Governance

• Directly lead, mentor, and manage a high-performing team of 5 to 10 Database Administrators, overseeing daily database operations, ticket resolution, on-call rotations, and SLA compliance.
• Serve as the primary technical point of escalation for high-severity (P1/P0) incident response, technical troubleshooting, and Root Cause Analysis (RCA).
• Drive resource allocation, project delivery timelines, skill development, and performance standards across the team.

2. Enterprise Oracle DBA & Infrastructure Management (Core)

• Architect, install, configure, manage, and optimize multi-node Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), Data Guard (Physical/Logical/Active), and Automatic Storage Management (ASM) across enterprise datacenters.
• Perform complex database upgrades, migrations, and Release Update (RU) / Patch Set Update (PSU) maintenance cycles using Out-of-Box (OOB) and zero-downtime rolling patch techniques.
• Partner with System/Infrastructure operations teams to plan, coordinate, and execute Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) OS-level kernel updates, security patching, and system hardening.
• Drive deep-dive performance tuning: execute proactive workload analysis using AWR, ASH, ADDM, SQL Monitor, and Execution Plan Analysis to optimize high-concurrency SQL and system-level bottlenecks.
• Design and validate robust RMAN backup & recovery (PITR) strategies, disaster recovery (DR) drills, and business continuity plans (BCP).

3. High-Volume Data Replication & Integration (Must-Have)

• Design, deploy, tune, and maintain enterprise real-time Change Data Capture (CDC) pipelines leveraging Fivetran Local Processing Server (LPS) / Fivetran HVR (High-Volume Replication) / HVA.
• Optimize replication topology for low-latency, high-throughput streaming from source Oracle databases to heterogeneous targets (data warehouses, target OLTP systems, analytical stores).
• Troubleshoot complex CDC issues, including log mining, transaction latency, schema evolution handling, network bottlenecks, and target deserialization errors.
• Establish automated monitoring, alert thresholds, and health checks for replication stream integrity and latency metrics.

4. Security, Governance & SOC Compliance

• Lead database security governance to maintain strict SOC 1 / SOC 2 Type II compliance and industry frameworks (PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, HIPAA).
• Implement and enforce strict Least Privilege Access Control (RBAC), Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), Oracle Data Redaction, and Audit Vault/Unified Auditing mechanisms.
• Conduct regular database vulnerability scans, security baseline reviews, and remediate compliance drift across all production and non-production database environments.
• Lead internal and external database audit engagements, proving operational evidence and compliance reporting.

5. PostgreSQL Database Administration (Nice-to-Have)

• Manage, configure, and optimize PostgreSQL / EnterpriseDB instances in production environments.
• Perform PostgreSQL version upgrades, extensions management, query optimization (using EXPLAIN ANALYZE, pg_stat_statements), and replication topology setup (Streaming Replication, Logical Replication, Patroni).

Required Qualifications & Technical Expertise

• Experience & Leadership: 10 to 15 years of progressive hands-on experience as an Oracle DBA, currently leading a team of 5 to 10 DBA resources in a mid-to-large scale enterprise environment.
• Oracle Mastery: Expert knowledge of Oracle 19c / 21c / 23 ai/ 26 ai internals, RAC, Active Data Guard, RMAN, ASM, OEM 13c/14c, and Engineered Systems/Exadata architectures.
• Replication Setup: Proven, hands-on experience architecting and administering real-time CDC replication solutions using Fivetran HVR / HVA or similar enterprise CDC technologies.
• Patching & Maintenance Lifecycle: Proven experience coordinating and executing OEL (Oracle Enterprise Linux) OS patching alongside Oracle RU/GI/Combo Patching with minimal business disruption.
• Security & Compliance: Demonstrated expertise in DB SOC Compliance, database auditing, TDE, key management, privilege analysis, and CIS hardening benchmarks.
• OS & Scripting: Expert-level Linux administration skills (OEL/RHEL), shell scripting, Python, or Ansible automation for database configuration management.

Preferred / Nice-to-Have Skills

• Hands-on DBA experience with PostgreSQL (native logical/physical replication, pg_dump/pg_restore, Vacuum tuning, Connection Pooling via PgBouncer).
• Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) or Oracle Certified Master (OCM) certifications.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools such as Ansible or Terraform for database provisioning and automated compliance checks.

Soft Skills & Leadership Attributes

• Proven track record of team building, mentoring junior/mid-level engineers, and fostering technical excellence.
• Strong incident management, critical decision-making, and communication skills under pressure during production outages.
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills to align DBA operations with Infrastructure, Security, DevOps, and Data Engineering teams.