Senior Cloud Database Engineer (Hybrid - Seattle, WA)

Nordstrom•Seattle, WA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Nordstrom’s Database Platform Services team is responsible for the data infrastructure that powers our business, including Oracle, MSSQL, and PostgreSQL at an enterprise scale. The team is also actively building the cloud-native database platform for the future. This role is for a Senior Cloud Database Engineer with strong AWS expertise and a solid foundation in Oracle and MSSQL operations. The position is not purely cloud-focused. The engineer will serve as the AWS subject matter expert within a team of experienced DBAs, leading the buildout of the cloud database platform on RDS, Aurora PostgreSQL, and Aurora DSQL. They will also maintain production responsibility for critical Oracle and MSSQL systems during an active migration period. Key responsibilities include establishing AWS standards, mentoring engineers in cloud-native practices, and managing responsibilities across both cloud and on-premises environments.

Requirements

7+ years of database engineering experience.
At least 3 years of AWS cloud database operations with production accountability.
Deep AWS expertise with hands-on production experience in RDS, Aurora PostgreSQL, and Aurora DSQL, including parameter tuning, HA topology, failover, and replication.
Solid Oracle DBA skills at enterprise scale: 19c/21c administration, fleet patching, OEM, ASM, AWR/statspack, and performance diagnostics. Production-depth required, not incidental exposure.
Operational MSSQL Server depth: HA/AG, T-SQL, backup/recovery, performance tuning, and independent P1 incident ownership.
Production Terraform for real infrastructure: state management, module design, and plan/apply discipline.
Proven ability to establish cloud database standards and best practices in an enterprise environment.
Experience enabling a team through a technology transition: training, runbooks, workshops, or hands-on mentorship.

Nice To Haves

Production GoldenGate CDC experience: Extract/Replicat configuration, trail file management, GG4BD, and bounded recovery. DMS or equivalent CDC experience considered.
AWS Database Specialty or Solutions Architect Professional certification.
Experience with DMS and SCT for Oracle or MSSQL to Aurora PostgreSQL migrations.
AWS observability tooling: CloudWatch, Performance Insights, RDS Enhanced Monitoring, or equivalent.
CI/CD pipeline integration for database deployments.
Broader AWS database services: ElastiCache (Redis/Memcached), DynamoDB, Redshift, Neptune.
AWS data ecosystem familiarity: S3, Glue, Athena, Kinesis, Lake Formation.
OCI experience or certifications.

Responsibilities

Architect, deploy, and operate AWS database services with a primary focus on RDS (Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL), Aurora PostgreSQL, and Aurora DSQL.
Define enterprise-grade standards, governance frameworks, and deployment patterns for AWS database services at Nordstrom.
Design backup, high availability (HA), and disaster recovery strategies that meet Service Level Agreement (SLA) and compliance requirements on AWS.
Develop and own Terraform infrastructure-as-code for cloud database provisioning, parameter management, networking, and lifecycle automation.
Lead knowledge transfer through hands-on workshops, writing runbooks, and actively mentoring Database Platform Services (DPS) engineers transitioning to AWS cloud-native practices.
Evaluate the broader AWS database services ecosystem (ElastiCache, DMS/SCT, DynamoDB, Redshift, and others) and guide adoption decisions.
Monitor and optimize performance using CloudWatch, Performance Insights, and related AWS observability tooling.
Support Oracle 19c/21c on-premises fleet, including patching cadences, OEM management, AWR/statspack analysis, RAC/ASM operations, and performance diagnostics.
Manage MSSQL Server environments, covering HA/AG, backup strategy, performance tuning, security hardening, and P1 incident ownership.
Operate GoldenGate CDC pipelines, including Extract/Replicat configuration, OCI GoldenGate managed service, and GG4BD delivery to Confluent Cloud Kafka.
Participate in on-call rotation and lead P1/P2 incident response across AWS and on-premises platforms.
Partner with application teams on schema change management, query optimization, and database architecture reviews.