Database Administrator

Stefanini Group•San Francisco, CA

5d•Remote

About The Position

Stefanini Group is hiring a Database Administrator for a remote position with some travel required. This role serves as the database expert across more than seven agile delivery teams, responsible for designing, installing, maintaining, and upgrading databases in production and non-production environments. The position provides technical expertise in database technology and is accountable for the overall performance of the enterprise's database environment. The role also involves administering and optimizing data mesh infrastructure, managing Databricks Unity Catalog, implementing data federation strategies, automating data migrations, and enforcing data governance policies. Collaboration with data domain owners, documentation of architectures, and ensuring information security are key aspects of this role. The ideal candidate has hands-on experience managing enterprise-scale, cloud-native data platforms with a focus on data democratization through modern architectures, understanding data mesh as a sociotechnical paradigm.

Requirements

3+ years as a database administrator
6+ years as a database administrator
Amazon RDS, DMS, and SQL Server
Databricks Unity Catalog administration (metastores, catalogs, schemas, external locations)
Starburst/Trino query federation and connector configuration
Data mesh architectural principles and domain-oriented data ownership models
Cloud-native storage patterns (S3, ADLS, or equivalent) and storage gateway technologies
Hybrid cloud/on-premises data federation and connectivity
Delta Lake or similar lakehouse storage formats
IAM and identity federation for cloud data platforms (AWS IAM, Azure AD, etc.)
Data lineage and metadata management tools
Infrastructure-as-Code for database provisioning (Terraform, CloudFormation, etc.)
DMS, REST APIs and programmatic database administration
Disaster recovery for databases
Superior communication skills - both written and verbal, with ability to communicate effectively at all organizational levels
Analytical and problem-solving skills - quickly assess situations and drive to resolution
Detail-oriented with process discipline - ensuring nothing falls through the cracks
Calm under pressure - ability to make sound decisions during high-stakes production deployments
Self-motivated and proactive - identifying issues before they become problems
Customer service orientation - supporting development teams and stakeholders professionally
Knowledge sharing and mentoring - ability to educate cross-functional teams on platform capabilities and best practices without formal reporting relationships
Adaptability across technology stacks - comfortable navigating both cloud-native and legacy on-premises environments
Strategic thinking - balancing immediate operational needs with long-term platform scalability
Collaboration across organizational boundaries - working effectively with domain teams in a decentralized data mesh model
Documentation excellence - creating clear, comprehensive technical documentation for diverse audiences
Continuous learning mindset - staying current with rapidly evolving cloud database and data mesh technologies
Ownership mentality - taking end-to-end responsibility for platform reliability without constant oversight

Nice To Haves

Managing Databricks environments at scale, particularly Unity Catalog in multi-workspace scenarios
Configuring and tuning Starburst/Trino for optimal query federation performance
Designing data access patterns that serve diverse analytical use cases
Hybrid cloud architectures where cloud-native and on-premises systems must interoperate seamlessly
Translating complex technical concepts for non-DBA audiences
Creating documentation that empowers self-service while maintaining standards
Educating domain teams on platform capabilities without being prescriptive about their data products

Responsibilities

Plans and organizes database activities regarding reliability, performance monitoring and tuning, security, backup and disaster recovery
Codes, edits, and installs stored procedures and functions for accessing, maintaining, and populating databases
Troubleshoots and resolves applications (ex., SQL, SqlServer, Amazon RDS) performance issues
Monitors, analyzes database performance and calibrates parameters tuning for optimal performance
Performs upgrades of databases, adding new structures or elements
Administers and optimizes data mesh infrastructure across multiple domains, ensuring domain-agnostic platform services maintain high availability and performance while optimizing for cost
Manages Databricks Unity Catalog configurations for multi-workspace data sharing, including metastore federation, catalog hierarchies, and cross-workspace access patterns
Implements and maintains data federation strategies connecting cloud-native storage with on-premises data sources through Starburst and other query engines
Automates data migrations and ingestions
Works with governance team to establish and enforce data governance policies within Unity Catalog, including fine-grained access controls, data lineage tracking, and compliance requirements
Optimizes storage gateway ingestion pipelines for reliability, throughput, and cost-efficiency
Collaborates with data domain owners to enable self-service data access while maintaining centralized platform standards
Documents database architectures, data flows, and federation patterns to enable knowledge transfer across the organization
Assures that appropriate information security is applied in all tasks
Develops and maintains enterprise data documentation and technical metadata
Monitors utilization for capacity planning
Maintains development, production, and multiple testing environments
Troubleshoots database accessibility, availability, and/or operability problems
Determines the appropriate course of actions for fixing problems, identifies and mitigates risks, and implements solutions