Senior PostgreSQL DBA / Platform Engineer

TekWissen • Taylor, TX

7d • Hybrid

About The Position

TekWissen is recruiting a hands-on senior PostgreSQL specialist for a 12-month temporary assignment with a client that operates the Texas power grid. The position is responsible for establishing enterprise database architecture and operational standards, and for database high availability and disaster recovery, backup and recovery, monitoring, performance, security, automation, lifecycle management, documentation, and knowledge transfer. The work is hybrid in Taylor, Texas.

The role assesses and remediates PostgreSQL environments across development, test, production, and disaster recovery; designs standardized database architectures and builds; engineers and tests high-availability and disaster-recovery solutions; and implements enterprise backup, monitoring, security, and automation practices. The engineer also diagnoses and tunes database performance, leads patching and major-version upgrade work, creates operational documentation, and transfers knowledge to internal teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or a closely related technical field.
• 8–10+ years of database administration experience, with preferably 5+ years of substantial production PostgreSQL administration in enterprise environments.
• Hands-on PostgreSQL expertise in architecture, configuration, WAL, MVCC, VACUUM/autovacuum, XID wraparound, locking, query plans, indexing, partitioning, statistics, extensions, replication, upgrades, migration, and troubleshooting.
• Hands-on experience with Patroni or an equivalent HA framework, etcd/Consul, streaming replication, HAProxy, PgBouncer, quorum, fencing, split-brain prevention, failover, and failback.
• Experience with pgBackRest, WAL archiving, PITR, full/differential/incremental backups, encryption, retention, large-database recovery, and restore testing.
• Experience with pg_stat views, pg_stat_statements, exporters/Prometheus/Grafana or enterprise monitoring, alerting, centralized logging, and SIEM integration.
• Strong RHEL/Linux skills, including systemd, filesystem/LVM, networking, SELinux, firewall, kernel/sysctl, ulimits, storage and I/O diagnostics, and shell scripting.
• Experience with Ansible, Git, Terraform, Python and/or shell, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, and automated database builds.
• Demonstrated experience with 24x7 production troubleshooting, incident response, root-cause analysis, change management, performance analysis, patching, and upgrades.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with large enterprise or multi-terabyte PostgreSQL estates.
• Experience supporting mission-critical or 24x7 database services.
• Experience with VMware or enterprise virtualization and enterprise storage.
• OpenShift or Kubernetes PostgreSQL experience.
• Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migration experience.
• Active Directory or enterprise IAM integration experience.
• Experience in regulated or critical-infrastructure environments.
• Experience with EDB, Percona, Crunchy Data, or upstream PostgreSQL.
• Experience with cloud PostgreSQL services and hybrid architectures.
• PostgreSQL community contributions or relevant certifications.

Responsibilities

• Assess and remediate enterprise PostgreSQL environments across DEV, TEST, PROD, and DR.
• Design PostgreSQL reference architectures and standardized database builds.
• Engineer and test high availability using streaming replication, Patroni or an equivalent framework, DCS quorum, HAProxy or service endpoints, PgBouncer, fencing, and failover/failback.
• Implement enterprise backup and recovery using pgBackRest or an equivalent, including WAL archiving, PITR, retention, encryption, and automated restore validation.
• Design and test disaster-recovery architectures, promotion and failback procedures, and RPO/RTO controls.
• Implement monitoring and alerting for PostgreSQL, replication, WAL, autovacuum/XID, queries, locks, storage, backup, HA/DCS, DR, operating systems, and capacity.
• Diagnose and tune SQL, execution plans, indexes, vacuum and bloat, memory, checkpoints, WAL, I/O, and concurrency.
• Establish security and IAM standards covering TLS, pg_hba, roles and privileges, secrets, logging, pgAudit, and SIEM integration.
• Lead minor patching and plan and execute major-version upgrades, including end-of-life remediation.
• Automate database builds and operations using Git, Ansible, Terraform, Python and/or shell, and CI/CD.
• Create runbooks, architecture diagrams, standards, and operational procedures, and conduct knowledge transfer.
• Troubleshoot production incidents, perform root-cause analysis, and support change management and performance analysis.
• Create documentation and operational handoff materials and communicate with DBA, infrastructure, application, security, management, and vendor support teams.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Senior