Senior Database Consultant, PostgreSQL

About this role

Why Pythian:
At Pythian, we are experts in strategic database and analytics services, driving digital transformation and operational excellence. Pythian, a multinational company, was founded in 1997 and started by ensuring the reliability and performance of mission-critical databases. We quickly earned a reputation for solving tough data challenges. We were there when the industry moved from on-premises to cloud environments, and as enterprises sought more from their data, we expanded our competencies to include advanced analytics.
Today, we empower organizations to embrace transformation and leverage advanced technologies, including AI, to stay competitive. We deliver innovative solutions that meet each client’s data goals and have built strong partnerships with Google Cloud, AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Snowflake. The powerful combination of our extensive expertise in data and cloud and our ability to keep on top of the latest bleeding edge technologies make us the perfect partner to help mid and large-sized businesses transform to stay ahead in today’s rapidly changing digital economy.
Why you:
The Senior Database Consultant will provide comprehensive support for all database and application infrastructure aspects to a diverse client base. This role is crucial for delivering and consulting on services, as well as for implementing improvements and optimizations for managed services customers.
If this is you, and you wonder what it would be like to work at Pythian, reach out to us and find out!
Intrigued to see what a life is like at Pythian? Check out #pythianlife on LinkedIn and follow @loveyourdata on Instagram!
Not the right job for you? Check out what other great jobs Pythian has open around the world! Pythian Careers
What you will be doing:
Database Management & Technical Expertise:

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Solution Design & Implementation: Coordinate, analyze, design, implement, and administer IT solutions, including database server configuration and ongoing maintenance.

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Infrastructure Analysis & Improvement: Analyze client infrastructure and processes, recommending best practices to enhance current operational procedures. This includes ensuring maximum uptime and recoverability for all databases.

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Backup & Disaster Recovery: Administer backup procedures and disaster recovery plans. This involves proactive monitoring to prevent issues, responding to alerts, and troubleshooting operational problems.

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Data Integrity & Recovery: Oversee backup, clustering, mirroring, replication, failover, and the restoration of corrupted databases.

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Action Plan Development: Develop and review action plans for maintenance, deployment, and upgrades, ensuring all relevant client documentation is completed. Maintain a thorough understanding of client information, including warnings, handoffs, and briefing notes.

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Data Architecture: Develop, implement, and maintain complex data architectures (e.g., normalized and/or dimensional data models and DDL generation). Perform data transformation and migration using scripts or stored procedures.

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Problem Management: Lead problem management efforts by assessing incidents for recurring patterns, designing technical procedures for regular requests and changes, and developing/reviewing action plans and associated documentation.

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On call: Participate equally in the team’s on call rotation, typically one weekend per month.

Client Engagement & Communication:

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Client Commitments: Make, manage, and meet client commitments in collaboration with team members.

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Reporting & Communication: Prepare client status and incident reports, review client reports regularly, and respond to client requests and inquiries.

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Client Alignment: Maintain alignment with client operating procedures, including change control, and manage client allotments, alerting the Team Manager to any pacing concerns.

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Technical Client Affinity: Take on technical client affinity as assigned by the Team Manager.

Process Improvement:

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Innovation & Improvement: Participate in and, at times, lead efforts to suggest, recommend, and potentially design/implement new monitoring checks, enhancements to DBC toolkits, and other process improvements (e.g., Initial Reviews, Performance Reviews, Audits). Focus on initiatives that increase the value Pythian provides to clients.
What we need from you:

• Knowledge and experience in installing, configuring and upgrading PostgreSQL databases & tools relevant in PostgreSQL Administration.

• Experience administering PostgreSQL in virtualized and cloud environments, especially AWS, GCP or Azure.

• Experience with scripting (bash/python) and software development (C++, Java, Go)

• Automation technologies such as Ansible, Terraform, Puppet, Chef, SALT experience.

• Debugging skills and the ability to troubleshoot methodically, identifying and applying fixes for known errors, and when necessary, capacity to think outside of the box to resolve complex issues

• Very good documentation skills.

• Nice to haves include; Understanding of current IT service standards such as ITIL. Being a contributor to projects relevant to PostgreSQL, or other database or infrastructure software.

• Hands-on experience in monitoring PostgreSQL databases using industry-standard tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, SolarWinds, pgAdmin, Zabbix, Nagios and Datadog.

• Experience with cloud-native and managed database monitoring tools, including AWS CloudWatch, Google Cloud Operations (Stackdriver), and Azure Monitor. This includes configuring monitoring solutions, analyzing performance metrics, setting up alerts, and troubleshooting database issues in cloud environments.

• Experience in setting up, configuring, and administering PostgreSQL on Kubernetes is a nice-to-have.

• Knowledge in monitoring and observability solutions with Prometheus, Grafana is a nice-to-have.

• Experience with High Availability (HA) solutions for PostgreSQL, including Patroni, and repmgr, is required. The candidate…