Senior Database Consultant, PostgreSQL

Senior Database Consultant

Canada | Remote | - Remote

Why Pythian

At Pythian, we are experts in strategic database and analytics services, driving digital transformation and operational excellence. Pythian, a multinational company, was founded in 1997 and started by ensuring the reliability and performance of mission-critical databases. We quickly earned a reputation for solving tough data challenges. We were there when the industry moved from on-premises to cloud environments, and as enterprises sought more from their data, we expanded our competencies to include advanced analytics.

Today, we empower organizations to embrace transformation and leverage advanced technologies, including AI, to stay competitive. We deliver innovative solutions that meet each client’s data goals and have built strong partnerships with Google Cloud, AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Snowflake. The powerful combination of our extensive expertise in data and cloud and our ability to keep on top of the latest bleeding edge technologies make us the perfect partner to help mid and large-sized businesses transform to stay ahead in today’s rapidly changing digital economy.

Why You

The Senior Database Consultant will provide comprehensive support for all database and application infrastructure aspects to a diverse client base. This role is crucial for delivering and consulting on services, as well as for implementing improvements and optimizations for managed services customers.

What You Will Be Doing

• Database Management & Technical Expertise:
• Solution Design & Implementation: Coordinate, analyze, design, implement, and administer IT solutions, including database server configuration and ongoing maintenance.
• Infrastructure Analysis & Improvement: Analyze client infrastructure and processes, recommending best practices to enhance current operational procedures. This includes ensuring maximum uptime and recoverability for all databases.
• Backup & Disaster Recovery: Administer backup procedures and disaster recovery plans. This involves proactive monitoring to prevent issues, responding to alerts, and troubleshooting operational problems.
• Data Integrity & Recovery: Oversee backup, clustering, mirroring, replication, failover, and the restoration of corrupted databases.
• Action Plan Development: Develop and review action plans for maintenance, deployment, and upgrades, ensuring all relevant client documentation is completed. Maintain a thorough understanding of client information, including warnings, handoffs, and briefing notes.
• Data Architecture: Develop, implement, and maintain complex data architectures (e.g., normalized and/or dimensional data models and DDL generation). Perform data transformation and migration using scripts or stored procedures.
• Problem Management: Lead problem management efforts by assessing incidents for recurring patterns, designing technical procedures for regular requests and changes, and developing/reviewing action plans and associated documentation.
• Oncall: Participate equally in the team’s on call rotation, typically one weekend per month.
• Client Engagement & Communication:
• Client Commitments: Make, manage, and meet client commitments in collaboration with team members.
• Reporting & Communication: Prepare client status and incident reports, review client reports regularly, and respond to client requests and inquiries.
• Client Alignment: Maintain alignment with client operating procedures, including change control, and manage client allotments, alerting the Team Manager to any pacing concerns.
• Technical Client Affinity: Take on technical client affinity as assigned by the Team Manager.
• Process Improvement:
• Innovation & Improvement: Participate in and, at times, lead efforts to suggest, recommend, and potentially design/implement new monitoring checks, enhancements to DBC toolkits, and other process improvements (e.g., Initial Reviews, Performance Reviews, Audits). Focus on initiatives that increase the value Pythian provides to clients.
  
  

What We Need From You

• Knowledge and experience in installing, configuring and upgrading PostgreSQL databases & tools relevant in PostgreSQL Administration.
• Experience administering PostgreSQL in virtualized and cloud environments, especially AWS, GCP or Azure.
• Experience with scripting (bash/python) and software development (C++, Java, Go) Automation technologies such as Ansible, Terraform, Puppet, Chef, SALT experience.
• Debugging skills and the ability to troubleshoot methodically, identifying and applying fixes for known errors, and when necessary, capacity to think outside of the box to resolve complex issues
• Very good documentation skills.
• Nice to haves include; Understanding of current IT service standards such as ITIL. Being a contributor to projects relevant to PostgreSQL, or other database or infrastructure software.Hands-on experience in monitoring PostgreSQL databases using industry-standard tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, SolarWinds, pgAdmin, Zabbix, Nagios and Datadog.Experience with cloud-native and managed database monitoring tools, including AWS CloudWatch, Google Cloud Operations (Stackdriver), and Azure Monitor. This includes configuring monitoring solutions, analyzing performance metrics, setting up alerts, and troubleshooting database issues in cloud environments.
• Experience in setting up, configuring, and administering PostgreSQL on Kubernetes is a nice-to-have.
• Knowledge in monitoring and observability solutions with Prometheus, Grafana is a nice-to-have.
• Experience with High Availability (HA) solutions for PostgreSQL, including Patroni, and repmgr, is required. The candidate should be proficient in configuring and managing automated failover, replication, and cluster health monitoring to ensure database resilience and minimal downtime.
• Additionally, experience with EnterpriseDB (EDB) solutions, such as EDB Postgres Distributed (PGD) for multi-master replication and EDB BigAnimal for managed PostgreSQL in the cloud, would be highly beneficial. Familiarity with automatic failover strategies, consensus-based leader election, and cloud-based database resilience is a plus.
• Experience with PostgreSQL backup tools, including Barman, pgBackRest, pg_basebackup, etc. is required. The candidate should be proficient in configuring full, incremental, and differential backups, as well as managing Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) and WAL archiving for disaster recovery.
• Experience in database migrations from different database engines, including Oracle, MySQL, and MSSQL, to PostgreSQL. Using migration tools such as ora2pg, AWS/GCP/Azure Database Migration Services (DMS), and other CDC-based techniques to ensure a smooth transition with minimal downtime.
• Experience migrating between on-premises and cloud-based databases.
• Experience analyzing and optimizing schema conversions, SQL compatibility issues, and performance tuning post-migration. Experience with Debezium and Striim is not mandatory but beneficial.
  
  

What You Get In Return

• Love your career: Competitive total rewards package. Blog during work hours; take a day off and volunteer for your favorite charity.
• Love your work/life balance: Flexibly work remotely from your home, there’s no daily travel requirement to an office! All you need is a stable internet connection.
• Love your coworkers: Collaborate with some of the best and brightest in the industry!
• Love your development: Hone your skills or learn new ones with our substantial training allowance; participate in professional development days, attend training, become certified, whatever you like!
• Love your workspace: We give you all the equipment you need to work from home including a laptop with your choice of OS, and an annual budget to personalize your work environment!
• Love yourself: Pythian cares about the health and well-being of our team. You will have an annual wellness budget to make yourself a priority (use it on gym memberships, massages, fitness and more). Additionally, you will receive a generous amount of paid vacation and sick days, as well as a day off to volunteer for your favorite charity.
  
  

Disclaimer

The successful applicant will need to fulfill the requirements necessary to obtain a background check.

Accommodations are available upon request for candidates taking part in any aspect of the selection process.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.