Development DBA

OpenDataJobs • Washington, DC

4h • Hybrid

About The Position

Peregrine Advisors Benefit Inc. is seeking a Development DBA to support data engineering and application database needs across client engagements. The role centers on designing, optimizing, and maintaining relational and cloud-based database systems that underpin production applications and analytical workflows, with an emphasis on performance, reliability, and developer enablement.
Why Peregrine
Peregrine is a Benefit corporation, legally committed to creating measurable social value alongside business performance. We offer mission-driven, technically challenging work on complex initiatives, paired with direct client access, real ownership of your work product, and a culture that rewards initiative.
Who You Are
You are a pragmatic, detail-oriented database professional who thrives at the intersection of application development and data infrastructure. You understand that a poorly tuned query or an ill-designed schema can undermine even the best application code, and you take pride in making sure that never happens. You collaborate naturally with software engineers, data engineers, and architects, speaking their language while holding the line on database best practices. You take ownership without being asked and care deeply about correctness, performance, and the long-term maintainability of the systems you build.

Requirements

• Expert-level SQL proficiency across at least one major RDBMS (SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or MySQL/MariaDB); working knowledge of a second platform strongly preferred
• Hands-on experience with database performance tuning: query analysis, index design, statistics, and execution plan interpretation
• Experience with schema versioning and database migration tooling (Flyway, Liquibase, Alembic, or similar) integrated into automated deployment pipelines
• Proficiency in Python, and terminal systems (PowerShell / Bash) for automation, data loading, and operational tasks
• Working knowledge of cloud-managed database services (Amazon RDS/Aurora); experience with cloud migrations a plus
• Solid understanding of relational data modeling theory and applied schema design patterns for OLTP systems
• Familiarity with DevSecOps practices: version control with Git, branching strategies, CI/CD pipeline integration, and environment promotion workflows
• Strong written and oral communication skills; able to explain technical trade-offs clearly to both engineering peers and non-technical stakeholders
• Bachelor’s required; Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related technical field strongly preferred
• 5+ years of experience in a development DBA, database developer, or data engineering role with strong SQL development responsibilities
• U.S. citizenship; ability to obtain a Public Trust suitability determination required

Nice To Haves

• Experience in federal data environments, government IT modernization, or regulated industries with data governance requirements preferred
• Experience supporting both OLTP and analytical workloads; exposure to data warehousing patterns (star schema, slowly changing dimensions) a plus
• Prior consulting or client-services experience preferred

Responsibilities

• Design and implement logical and physical data models for new application features, ensuring normalization, referential integrity, and scalability
• Author and review stored procedures, functions, views, triggers, and complex SQL queries across relational database platforms (SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or equivalent)
• Collaborate with software engineers during the full development lifecycle to ensure database designs align with application requirements and performance targets
• Define and enforce database coding standards, naming conventions, and schema change management practices across development teams
• Build and maintain schema migration scripts and manage versioned deployments through CI/CD pipelines
• Profile and tune slow queries, identify missing indexes, and resolve locking and blocking issues in development and production environments
• Conduct execution plan analysis and implement query rewrites, index strategies, and statistics management to meet SLA requirements
• Establish performance baselines and monitor database health metrics; proactively identify and resolve bottlenecks before they impact users
• Support cloud-hosted database environments (Azure SQL, AWS RDS/Aurora, or equivalent); assist in migrations from on-premises to cloud platforms
• Integrate database change management into CI/CD workflows using tools such as Flyway, Liquibase, or equivalent migration frameworks
• Participate in infrastructure-as-code efforts, contributing database configuration and provisioning scripts using Terraform, Bicep, or CloudFormation
• Partner with DBAs, data engineers, and solution architects to align database design with broader data platform and enterprise architecture strategies
• Contribute to internal tooling, knowledge base articles, or mentorship to strengthen Peregrine’s data engineering capabilities and bench depth

Benefits

• Full health coverage (medical, dental, and vision) with 100% of employee premiums covered
• Life and disability insurance, fully covered by the company
• 401(k) retirement plan with 100% match on contributions up to 4% of salary with immediate vesting
• Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO) to encourage work-life balance
• Sponsored database certification training

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level