Manager Data Platform Operations

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island•Providence, RI

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Working closely with data engineering, application engineering, infrastructure, security, architecture, analytics, business intelligence, product, and vendor teams, leads the operational management, reliability, governance, and continuous improvement of enterprise database and cloud data platforms. Accountable for managing a team responsible for database administration, production support, access governance, release support, performance optimization, backup and recovery, vulnerability remediation, monitoring, automation, platform modernization across legacy, on-premises, cloud-hosted, and cloud-native data environments. Ensures that data platforms are secure, compliant, performant, resilient, cost-aware, and aligned with enterprise architecture, data governance, SDLC, DevOps, and operational standards. Platform scope: Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server on Azure VM, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, PostgreSQL, EDB Postgres, Oracle databases and Oracle-based data platforms, IBM Netezza, Snowflake, Azure Data Lake, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure-based data services, data integration touchpoints with Power BI and analytical tools, and Salesforce Data Cloud knowledge where applicable.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Data Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
5-7 years of experience in database administration, data platform operations, infrastructure operations, data engineering operations, or a closely related enterprise technology discipline.
3-5 years of experience leading teams, managing technical resources, coordinating operational work, or serving in a senior lead role responsible for database or data platform support.
Demonstrated experience supporting production database platforms in an enterprise environment with responsibilities spanning availability, performance, security, access management, change management, backup/recovery, and incident response.
Strong knowledge of enterprise database operations, including administration, monitoring, performance tuning, backup/recovery, disaster recovery, capacity management, storage management, security, and production support practices.
Working knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server on Azure VM, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, PostgreSQL, EDB Postgres, Oracle, IBM Netezza, Snowflake, Azure Data Lake, Azure Synapse, and related Azure data platform capabilities.
Ability to manage operational priorities across incidents, service requests, access requests, audit activities, release work, project support, platform upgrades, and modernization initiatives.
Strong understanding of data platform security and governance, including role-based access control, least privilege, service account governance, recertifications, audit logging, vulnerability remediation, encryption concepts, retention, and data protection practices.
Experience leading production incident response and root cause analysis for database and data platform issues affecting applications, reporting, batch processing, analytics workloads, and data pipelines.
Ability to evaluate database performance issues, query optimization needs, compute and warehouse utilization, storage concerns, reporting workload bottlenecks, connectivity issues, and platform configuration risks.
Knowledge of backup, recovery, replication, high availability, account failover, disaster recovery testing, and business continuity practices across relational and analytical data platforms.
Understanding of cloud data platform patterns, including data lakes, cloud databases, managed instances, analytical warehouses, data pipelines, data refreshes, environment cloning, and test environment management.
Ability to partner with architecture and engineering teams to advise on platform selection, data architecture, operational readiness, scalability, supportability, and modernization tradeoffs.
Experience with monitoring and observability tools such as Grafana, native Azure monitoring, Snowflake monitoring, database platform tools, alerting frameworks, and operational dashboards.
Understanding of DevOps and SDLC practices related to database change management, release pipelines, deployment reviews, source control, environment coordination, and change control.
Ability to mature operational processes through automation, service catalog improvements, runbook development, workflow optimization, recurring task reduction, and continuous improvement practices.
Strong leadership skills with the ability to coach technical staff, set priorities, balance support and project demand, manage escalations, and create a culture of accountability and service quality.
Ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences, including explaining operational risks, tradeoffs, compliance impacts, platform decisions, and remediation plans.
Ability to operate within agile, waterfall, hybrid, governance-driven, and ITIL-based operating models as required by enterprise delivery and support processes.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Data Science, Business Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field.
Experience in healthcare, insurance, financial services, or another regulated environment with strong privacy, auditability, data protection, retention, and compliance requirements.
Experience managing enterprise database teams supporting blended legacy, on-premise, cloud-hosted, and cloud-native data platforms.
Experience with Snowflake administration, Azure SQL, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake, Microsoft Fabric or related Azure data services, Oracle, PostgreSQL, IBM Netezza, and Microsoft SQL Server.
Experience with Salesforce Data Cloud concepts, customer data platforms, data integration, data quality, identity resolution, or analytical data activation capabilities.
Experience with DevOps, CI/CD, release governance, infrastructure-as-code concepts, automated provisioning, ServiceNow workflows, and operational automation.
Relevant certifications such as Microsoft Azure database or data engineering certifications, Snowflake certifications, Oracle certifications, PostgreSQL certifications, ITIL, security certifications, or cloud architecture certifications.
Experience working with internal teams, managed service providers, offshore partners, software vendors, and cross-functional delivery teams.

Responsibilities

Lead and manage the Data Platform Operations team responsible for administration, operational support, reliability, governance, security, performance, and modernization of enterprise database and cloud data platforms.
Own day-to-day operational coverage for Microsoft SQL Server, Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Netezza, Snowflake, Azure Data Lake, Azure Synapse, and other Azure-based data platforms, ensuring production issues, service requests, and project support are prioritized and resolved effectively.
Provide management oversight for database access management activities, including user provisioning, service account governance, access reviews, recertifications, least-privilege controls, and remediation of access-related audit findings.
Partner with security, risk, compliance, and data governance stakeholders to ensure database platforms and data services meet enterprise security, privacy, auditability, retention, and regulatory expectations.
Lead operational support for database release and change management, including review and approval of database deployment activities, execution oversight for database scripts, production readiness, rollback planning, and post-deployment validation.
Coordinate database infrastructure and environment management activities, including database builds, refreshes, data movement between environments, Snowflake clones, Azure SQL refreshes, Oracle and PostgreSQL refreshes, and test environment readiness.
Ensure effective production support and incident management across supported platforms, including response to performance issues, failed or delayed batch jobs, data refresh failures, integration issues, security events, and database availability concerns.
Manage platform monitoring practices using Grafana, native cloud monitoring, Snowflake monitoring, SQL Server tooling, Oracle tooling, and other operational observability capabilities to proactively identify availability, capacity, performance, and security risks.
Drive database performance and optimization practices, including query tuning, warehouse and compute utilization analysis, storage optimization, reporting workload optimization, and partnership with analytics and application teams on performance remediation.
Oversee storage, capacity, and cost management activities across database platforms, including SQL Server storage management, Snowflake warehouse utilization, Azure data platform consumption, archival strategies, cleanup activities, and database consolidation opportunities.
Lead backup, recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery planning and execution, including database recovery strategies, DR testing, Snowflake replication, account failover readiness, and platform resilience improvements.
Manage vulnerability and security remediation activities for database platforms, including assessment of platform findings, patch coordination, remediation tracking, authentication modernization, security event monitoring, and compliance reporting.
Oversee SQL Server licensing and database rationalization activities, including license audits, consolidation planning, compatibility assessments, and migration planning to Azure SQL Database or Azure SQL Managed Instance where appropriate.
Provide management and technical guidance for Snowflake platform administration, including RBAC, service user conversion, warehouse performance, data pipeline support, replication, account failover capabilities, Snowpark, notebooks, and new capability evaluation.
Guide teams on appropriate platform selection and modernization patterns across relational databases, analytical platforms, cloud-native data services, data lake architectures, and enterprise reporting workloads.
Partner with application development, data engineering, analytics, architecture, infrastructure, and vendor teams to review solution designs, identify operational impacts, establish support models, and ensure data platform readiness for new initiatives.
Build and mature operational runbooks, standard operating procedures, support documentation, release documentation, platform standards, service catalog items, and knowledge articles for repeatable platform operations.
Drive automation and process improvement efforts, including user provisioning automation, recurring refresh automation, Snowflake clone automation, catalog workflow enhancements, ad-hoc query automation, data archival automation, and recurring operational task reduction.
Lead, coach, mentor, and develop database administrators and data platform engineers, setting clear priorities, supporting technical growth, managing workload, and promoting consistent operational practices.
Manage vendor, partner, and cross-functional relationships supporting data platform operations, ensuring service quality, issue escalation, knowledge transfer, and alignment to enterprise operating models.
Track and communicate operational health, risks, incidents, capacity trends, platform improvements, project commitments, audit activities, and modernization opportunities to technology leadership and business stakeholders.
Continuously assess emerging capabilities across Snowflake, Azure data services, SQL platforms, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Salesforce Data Cloud, monitoring tools, automation frameworks, and data governance tooling to recommend practical improvements.
Perform other duties as assigned.