We are seeking a hands-on Database Administrator for a remote contract engagement supporting high-availability operational database systems behind a large, high-traffic website. The role focuses on database reliability, security, disaster recovery, performance analysis, and close partnership with engineering teams.

Enterprise experience strongly preferred.

Key Responsibilities

- Maintain high availability and strong performance across production database systems.

- Plan, test, and carry out disaster recovery procedures with a zero-data-loss objective.

- Maintain database security, access controls, and adherence to security protocols.

- Analyze and tune database performance and diagnose difficult production performance issues.

- Work closely with engineers on requirements gathering, system design, design reviews, performance tuning, and technical support.

- Administer operational data systems in a highly technical production environment.

- Deliver reliable work under tight deadlines and remain composed during high-pressure incidents.

Must-Have Skills

- Approximately 3 to 4 years of hands-on database administration experience.

- Experience with both Microsoft SQL Server and Aurora PostgreSQL; deeper expertise in either platform is acceptable.

- Hands-on AWS experience, particularly Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora.

- Programming experience with PowerShell or Python.

- Experience with Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform.

- Experience administering and troubleshooting Confluent Kafka.

- Extensive experience with database performance analysis and tuning.

- Experience administering high-function, high-availability production systems.

- Experience planning or performing disaster recovery.

- Strong ability to diagnose difficult database performance issues.

- Experience working closely with engineering teams through requirements gathering, design reviews, technical support, and deadline-driven delivery.

- Experience with database access control and security practices.

Nice-to-Have Skills

- Experience building Kafka connectors and topics.

- Experience with NoSQL databases such as MongoDB.

- Experience with Snowflake.

- Experience with other relational databases such as MySQL.

- Advanced Kafka experience, including KSQL and Flink.

Required Tools & Platforms

- Microsoft SQL Server and Aurora PostgreSQL.

- AWS, Amazon RDS, and Amazon Aurora.

- PowerShell or Python.

- Terraform or comparable Infrastructure as Code tooling.

- Confluent Kafka.

Location, Time & Engagement

- Candidates must be based in an eligible Latin American country.

- Central Time working hours are preferred.

- Remote contract engagement, 40 hours per week.

- Expected engagement through March 31, 2027; start date to be agreed.

- One opening is available.

- This is not currently a contract-to-hire opportunity.

- Before client submission, viable candidates must complete the Amazon WorkSpaces Health connectivity test and provide a screenshot showing good connectivity to an AWS WorkSpace region.