Senior Database Administrator

Syngenta Group•Durham, NC

23d•Onsite

About The Position

Syngenta Seeds Field Crops is seeking a Senior Database Administrator in Durham, North Carolina. The role owns the administration, optimization, security, modernization, and strategic direction of enterprise database platforms supporting critical applications and business processes. It provides technical leadership across cloud-hosted and enterprise database environments, with accountability for availability, performance, scalability, cost efficiency, data protection, and long-term platform sustainability. The administrator partners with application teams, cloud engineers, infrastructure teams, vendors, and business stakeholders to translate business and technical needs into database strategies, standards, modernization plans, and measurable outcomes. The position combines hands-on administration with strategic platform ownership, automation, governance, and cross-team execution, and includes mentoring junior database administrators.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
At least 7 years of experience administering enterprise database platforms in production environments.
Hands-on experience with AWS cloud database services, including Amazon RDS and Aurora PostgreSQL.
Expertise in advanced SQL, database architecture, query execution plan analysis, indexing, partitioning, clustering, performance tuning, replication, backup and recovery, high availability, disaster recovery, data modeling, normalization, and roadmap execution.
Experience troubleshooting complex application, database, and infrastructure issues supporting mission-critical services.
Experience with database monitoring, operational support, incident response, change management, and problem management processes.
Strong scripting, automation, analytical, strategic planning, communication, stakeholder management, organizational, and independent execution skills.
Ability to work under minimal supervision and proficiency using database administration tools and utilities.
Authorization to work in the U.S. without sponsorship.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Oracle, MongoDB, and other database technologies beyond AWS, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server.
Experience leading database migration and cloud modernization initiatives.
Experience working with AWS infrastructure and cloud-native services.
Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps practices.
Knowledge of database security, compliance, and governance best practices.
Experience supporting scientific, research, manufacturing, commercial, or other data-intensive business environments.
AWS or database-related professional certifications.

Responsibilities

Administer, optimize, secure, and monitor enterprise database platforms across AWS-hosted and enterprise environments, including Amazon RDS, Aurora PostgreSQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, and related technologies.
Define database strategy, standards, governance, service catalog expectations, ownership metadata, operational documentation, and multi-year roadmaps aligned with business priorities, operational needs, and compliance requirements.
Troubleshoot complex incidents involving performance, replication, connectivity, availability, backup, recovery, disaster recovery, and reliability for mission-critical database services.
Lead database modernization initiatives from assessment through execution, including migration to cloud-native and managed database services and improvements to long-term platform sustainability.
Manage data sources, change data capture, replication, synchronization, transformation, data modeling, and normalization practices to support reliable data flow and trusted business outcomes.
Maintain security controls, encryption standards, access controls, vulnerability remediation, audit support, automation, change management, and operational standards for database environments.
Partner with application, cloud, infrastructure, vendor, and business teams.
Mentor junior database administrators through coaching, standards, knowledge sharing, and practical database administration guidance.