Lead PostgreSQL Database Administrator

Green Dot Corporation • Los Angeles, CA

5d • $109,300 - $163,900 • Hybrid

About The Position

Green Dot is hiring a hands-on senior PostgreSQL database administrator to own the design, availability, performance, and security of its production PostgreSQL estate in Microsoft Azure. The estate includes Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server and self-managed PostgreSQL on Azure virtual machines running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS Stream, and Windows Server. This is an individual-contributor engineering role, not a supervisory role, and serves as the final escalation point for database incidents and the architect of high-availability and disaster-recovery designs, including active-passive and active-active topologies.

The position covers Azure platform administration, self-managed PostgreSQL operations on Linux and Windows, performance engineering, security and compliance, monitoring and incident response, migrations and upgrades, and infrastructure automation. The DBA leads serious database incident response, maintains runbooks, mentors junior DBAs and developers, and reviews schema changes. The role requires participation in a 24x7 on-call rotation.

The position is structured hybrid, with three days per week in the office and flexibility to work remotely on the remaining days. It is open only to candidates currently residing in West Los Angeles, California, and candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future visa sponsorship. The listed position type is Contractor. The targeted full-time base salary is $109,300 to $163,900 per year; final compensation depends on qualifications, expertise, and location.

Requirements

• At least 7 years administering PostgreSQL in production, including at least 3 years with PostgreSQL 14 or later.
• At least 3 years hosting and operating PostgreSQL in Microsoft Azure, including at least 2 years with Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server; experience with the retired Single Server offering does not meet this requirement.
• Demonstrated ownership of a production active-passive high-availability cluster, including at least one real, non-test failover.
• Demonstrated design or operation of a production active-active or bi-directional replication topology, with a clear explanation of conflict prevention or resolution.
• Production PostgreSQL administration experience on both Linux (RHEL or CentOS) and Windows Server.
• Experience with Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server HA modes, read replicas, PITR and geo-restore, major version upgrades, server parameters, extension allow-lists, PgBouncer, and maintenance windows.
• Experience with Azure database networking, including VNet integration, private endpoints, private DNS, and NSGs.
• Experience with Microsoft Entra ID authentication for PostgreSQL and managed identities.
• Experience with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics (KQL), and Azure Advisor for PostgreSQL.
• Azure infrastructure-as-code experience with Terraform or Bicep, along with Azure CLI and PowerShell.
• Experience with streaming replication, replication slots, logical replication, publications and subscriptions, and pglogical.
• Experience with Patroni or an equivalent cluster manager, etcd or Consul, and HAProxy or PgBouncer.
• Experience with pgBackRest or Barman, WAL archiving to object storage, and incremental backups.
• Deep query-tuning skills, including execution-plan analysis, index design, statistics, partitioning, autovacuum tuning, and bloat management.
• Experience with major version upgrades using pg_upgrade, logical replication, and pg_createsubscriber.
• Working knowledge of PostgreSQL 18 features, including asynchronous I/O, UUIDv7, virtual generated columns, temporal constraints, OAuth, and data checksums enabled by default, and awareness of PostgreSQL 19 changes.
• RHEL or CentOS experience with systemd, SELinux, LVM, PGDG package management, and bash scripting.
• Windows Server experience with service management, NTFS permissions, PowerShell scripting, and Windows-specific PostgreSQL installation and upgrade behavior.
• Experience with Git-based workflows, CI/CD pipelines, and configuration management.
• Experience leading Sev-1 incident response and writing post-mortems.
• Clear written communication skills for runbooks, architecture decision records, and change requests that non-DBAs can follow.
• Ability to participate in a 24x7 on-call rotation.
• Ability to work in the United States without sponsorship and meet the stated location requirement.

Nice To Haves

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate (DP-300) or Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305).
• Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) certification or equivalent Linux certification.
• Hands-on testing of PostgreSQL 19 betas or release candidates, especially REPACK CONCURRENTLY, parallel autovacuum, WAIT FOR LSN, and sequence replication.
• Experience with Azure Database for PostgreSQL elastic clusters (Citus-based sharding) or Citus on self-managed clusters.
• Experience with EDB Postgres Distributed, pgEdge, or another commercial multi-master product, and an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of native tooling.
• Experience with Azure Database Migration Service for online migrations from Oracle, SQL Server, or other PostgreSQL sources.
• Experience operating pgvector, pg_diskann, or Apache AGE on flexible server for AI or graph workloads.
• Kubernetes-hosted PostgreSQL on AKS using CloudNativePG, Crunchy Postgres Operator, or Zalando Postgres Operator.
• Contributions to the PostgreSQL community, such as patches, extensions, conference talks, or documentation.
• Familiarity with Oracle, SQL Server, or MySQL for cross-platform migration work.
• Security and compliance experience with SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS, or FedRAMP audits involving database controls.

Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, operate, and test high-availability PostgreSQL systems, including Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server and self-managed clusters on Azure virtual machines.
• Design active-passive and active-active or bi-directional replication topologies, including failover, conflict prevention and resolution, replication health, and cross-region disaster recovery.
• Administer Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server, including provisioning, networking, authentication, encryption, compute and storage, PgBouncer, upgrades, replicas, backups, restores, maintenance, and elastic clusters where appropriate.
• Install, patch, configure, and tune PostgreSQL 15–19 on RHEL, CentOS Stream, and Windows Server Azure virtual machines.
• Operate database backup and recovery tooling, WAL archiving, and scheduled restoration tests.
• Diagnose and tune query performance, autovacuum, storage bloat, asynchronous I/O, memory, checkpointing, WAL compression, partitioning, indexes, and statistics.
• Enforce database security controls, including least-privilege access, row-level security, authentication, TLS, encryption at rest, auditing, and timely response to CVEs.
• Build monitoring dashboards and alerts, lead Sev-1 database incidents, write blameless post-mortems, and drive resulting corrective actions to completion.
• Plan and execute migrations into Azure and major PostgreSQL version upgrades, including rollback plans and application regression testing.
• Maintain database infrastructure as code using tools such as Terraform, Bicep, Ansible, and PowerShell, with CI-tested changes.
• Write and maintain runbooks for failovers, restores, and upgrades; mentor junior DBAs and developers; and review schema changes in pull requests.
• Participate in a 24x7 on-call rotation.

Benefits

• Reasonable accommodations are available upon request during the application or interview process.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed