Senior Database Administrator

Al Etihad Payments; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 350,000 - 550,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Child educational allowance

Annual flight tickets

Health insurance

Job summary

Al Etihad Payments in the UAE seeks a senior Database Architect to lead the design, administration, security and optimization of our database platforms (Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB). You will set standards, drive architecture decisions and ensure payment systems achieve high availability and regulatory compliance.

The role includes mentoring the DBA team, coordinating upgrades and migrations, governing DR/HA, and partnering with application and architecture teams on data models,

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or related field.
• 10+ years of database administration experience, including at least 7 years on Oracle in large production environments and at least 2 years in a senior/lead role.
• Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) required; Oracle Certified Master (OCM) a strong advantage; MySQL, PostgreSQL or MongoDB certs preferred.
• Experience in banking, payments or other highly regulated environments preferred.

Responsibilities

• Define database architecture, standards and best practices across Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL and MongoDB.
• Act as senior escalation point for complex incidents, performance issues and root cause analysis.
• Lead, mentor and assign work to the DBA team and review changes and designs.
• Evaluate new database technologies and contribute to the technology roadmap.
• Design and govern HA and DR solutions (Oracle RAC, Data Guard, GoldenGate).
• Lead performance tuning, capacity planning and growth forecasting for critical payment systems.
• Own backup and recovery strategy and lead DR drills.
• Plan and lead upgrades, migrations, consolidations and cloud database adoption.
• Collaborate with application/architecture teams on data models and deployment practices.
• Review database changes in Change Management process.
• Define security standards, encryption, auditing and privileged access.
• Coordinate with DAM, PAM and vulnerability management platforms.
• Represent DB function in PCI DSS, ISO 27001 audits and remediation.

Skills

Oracle RAC

Data Guard

GoldenGate

RMAN

Exadata

MySQL

PostgreSQL

MongoDB

SQL Tuning

PL/SQL

Database Security

Cloud Databases

Leadership

Stakeholder Mgmt

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/IT

OCP Certification

OCM Advantage

DB Certifications (MySQL/PostgreSQL/MongoDB)

Tools

Oracle

MySQL

PostgreSQL

MongoDB

Job description

Al Etihad Payments empowers employees to work in an environment that best promotes their productivity and well-being, while providing high-quality workplace and fantastic professional experience.

Get to Know Us

Al Etihad Payments is the UAE’s designated retail payments entity, dedicated to developing and operating world-class infrastructure, standards, and solutions for the UAE Economy. Al Etihad Payments is a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE, strongly supported by the UAE Government.

Al Etihad Payments is the UAE’s designated retail payments entity, dedicated to developing and operating world-class infrastructure, standards, and solutions for the UAE Economy. Al Etihad Payments is a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE, strongly supported by the UAE Government.

Our employees are committed to work with licensed financial institutions and other payment service providers to foster innovation and deliver excellent financial services to all in the UAE, efficiently and without friction.

Al Etihad Payments supports the government’s objectives of a cashless society, national digitization, and the Central Bank of the UAE objective of being a top ten central bank globally.

Our Culture

We are a collaborative, diverse and passionate group of individuals that works as one team. We support one another, make impactful contributions to the organization, and develop and nurture meaningful connections across the payment’s ecosystem!

About the role

Lead the design, administration, security and optimization of Al Etihad Payments' database platforms, with deep expertise in Oracle and broad oversight of MySQL, PostgreSQL and MongoDB. The role acts as the technical authority and escalation point for the database team, defines standards and architecture, and ensures mission-critical payment systems achieve the highest levels of availability, performance and regulatory compliance.

What You’ll Do:

Database Architecture & Technical Leadership

• Define database architecture, standards and best practices across Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL and MongoDB.
• Act as the senior escalation point for complex incidents, performance issues and root cause analysis.
• Lead, mentor and assign work to the DBA team, and review their changes and designs.
• Evaluate new database technologies and contribute to the technology roadmap.

High Availability, DR & Performance

• Design and govern HA and DR solutions such as Oracle RAC, Data Guard, GoldenGate and replication for open-source databases.
• Lead complex performance tuning, capacity planning and growth forecasting for critical payment systems.
• Own backup and recovery strategy in coordination with the Backup team, and lead DR drills.

Projects, Upgrades & Migrations

• Plan and lead major upgrades, migrations, consolidations and cloud database adoption.
• Work with application and architecture teams on data models, schema design and deployment practices.
• Review and approve database-related changes in the change management process.

Security Operations, Compliance & Documentation

• Define database security standards, including hardening, encryption, auditing and privileged access.
• Oversee integration with DAM, PAM and vulnerability management platforms.
• Represent the database function in PCI DSS, ISO 27001 and audits, and own remediation of findings.
• Maintain database policies, documentation and runbooks.

Qualifications & Years of Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or a related field.
• 10+ years of database administration experience, including at least 7 years on Oracle in large production environments and at least 2 years in a senior or lead role.
• Required certification: Oracle Certified Professional (OCP); Oracle Certified Master (OCM) is a strong advantage. MySQL, PostgreSQL or MongoDB certifications are preferred.
• Experience in banking, payments or other highly regulated environments is highly preferred.

Required Skills

• Expert Oracle administration: RAC, ASM, Data Guard, GoldenGate, RMAN, OEM and Exadata.
• Strong hands-on experience with MySQL, PostgreSQL and MongoDB administration, replication and clustering.
• Advanced SQL and PL/SQL tuning and troubleshooting.
• Database security, encryption and audit design.
• Cloud database services (e.g. Azure SQL, Amazon RDS, Oracle Cloud) and automation through scripting.
• Leadership, mentoring, stakeholder management and strong communication skills.

What you can expect from us

• Modern work environment with level of flexibility;
• Dynamic and motivated team of colleagues working towards achieving UAE National Objectives;
• Competitive compensation package, including annual bonus and additional benefits like child educational allowance and annual flight tickets (where eligible);
• Comprehensive health insurance coverage;