Principal Database Engineer

NCR Corporation•Atlanta, GA

About The Position

The Principal Database Engineer will provide technical leadership and strategic stewardship of NCR Voyix’s database platforms, including Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL across on-premises, cloud (GCP and Azure), and hybrid deployments. The role combines hands-on expertise with strategic leadership to establish standards, design resilient architectures, lead migrations, and advance automation and operational efficiency. The position is responsible for the architecture, operations, security, performance, reliability, and modernization of enterprise database platforms. It includes ensuring high availability and compliance, defining observability and reliability practices, managing capacity and costs, and collaborating with application teams, data engineers, SRE, security, and business stakeholders. The role also provides mentorship and architectural guidance to DBAs, engineers, and developers.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive database administration, architecture, and engineering experience, including leadership of large-scale enterprise initiatives.
Expertise in Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL, including SQL Server Always On Availability Groups, Failover Cluster Instances, replication technologies, PostgreSQL streaming and logical replication, partitioning, backup and recovery, disaster recovery, and performance optimization.
Experience designing and supporting managed database platforms, including Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure SQL Database, Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, and hybrid architectures.
Proficiency in T-SQL, PL/pgSQL, and PowerShell.
Strong communication, problem-solving, and cross-functional leadership abilities.
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, IT, or a related field.

Responsibilities

Design and implement scalable, high-availability SQL Server and PostgreSQL architectures, reference models, and governance standards.
Ensure 24×7 database availability, monitor performance, troubleshoot issues, and execute disaster recovery plans.
Define database SLOs and SLAs; establish monitoring, telemetry, proactive alerting, capacity planning, and reliability practices.
Optimize workloads and queries, improve throughput, analyze bottlenecks, and implement solutions.
Implement and enforce security policies, data protection measures, and audit controls, and support regulatory compliance.
Implement database security controls, including encryption, privileged access management, vulnerability remediation, cyber recovery planning, and auditing.
Oversee backup strategies, recovery testing, and business continuity planning.
Lead complex migrations, schema evolutions, and cloud adoption initiatives.
Forecast growth, optimize infrastructure utilization, and drive database cost-efficiency initiatives across on-premises and cloud platforms.
Collaborate with application teams, data engineers, SRE, security, and business stakeholders to align database solutions with business goals.
Mentor DBAs, engineers, and developers; provide architectural guidance; lead incident reviews; and promote database best practices.
Establish enterprise database standards, lifecycle management processes, naming conventions, operational runbooks, and governance frameworks.