Controls Tech EIM Database Lead / Database Engineering Lead

Citigroup; Chennai District; On-site; INR 6,000,000 - 12,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Citigroup in Chennai seeks an experienced Database Technical Lead to steer design, modernization, and resiliency of enterprise databases across Oracle, PostgreSQL, and NoSQL platforms.

The role encompasses cloud migration, HA, security, and DevOps integration, guiding senior engineers in multi-region banking systems and driving data governance and compliance with industry best practices.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing and delivering enterprise database solutions.
• Proven cloud migration and DBaaS implementation capabilities.
• Strong HA, replication, and scalability engineering expertise.
• Knowledge of data governance, security, and regulatory compliance.
• Proficient in monitoring, performance tuning, and automation.

Responsibilities

• Architect and deliver end-to-end database solutions across relational and NoSQL systems.
• Lead modernization, DBaaS, and cloud enablement across multi-region environments.
• Design and maintain high availability, replication and DR topologies.
• Drive security, vulnerability management, and policy compliance at scale.
• Mentor senior engineers and collaborate with SREs and application teams.

Skills

Oracle

PostgreSQL

SQL Server

MongoDB

Cassandra

Redis

Cloud DBaaS

Tools

OpenShift

AWS RDS

Aurora

Patroni

Data Guard

Jenkins

Terraform

Ansible

Job description

Position Overview

Citi is seeking an experienced, high-caliber Database Technical Lead (C13 / VP) to lead the design, modernization, administration, and resiliency engineering of enterprise database platforms. As a C13 Database Lead, you will be responsible for defining technical strategies, driving cloud and database-as-a-service (DBaaS) transformations, ensuring strict data governance and security compliance, and leading senior technical engineers across critical multi-region banking systems.

Responsibilities & Requirements

• Enterprise Database Architecture & Technical Strategy
  Architect, design, and deliver end-to-end database solutions across relational (Oracle, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server) and NoSQL/Distributed databases (MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis).
  Define enterprise standards for data modeling, partitioning, indexing strategies, and database scalability across high-volume transactional (OLTP) and analytical (OLAP) environments.
  Drive the technical roadmap aligned with Citi's enterprise reference architectures, zero-trust infrastructure, and microservices ecosystem.
• Modernization, DBaaS & Cloud Enablement
  Lead migration initiatives from legacy on-premises databases to modern cloud and containerized platforms (AWS RDS/Aurora, OpenShift, internal private cloud DBaaS/PaaS).
  Champion database containerization and modern provisioning frameworks, automating lifecycle management and cluster autoscaling.
  Partner with application development and cloud architecture teams to re-platform and refactor applications for cloud-native persistence layers.
• High Availability, Replication & Scalability Engineering
  Architect, configure, and maintain robust High Availability (HA) topologies (e.g., Oracle Data Guard/Active Data Guard, Oracle RAC, PostgreSQL Streaming Replication / Patroni, MongoDB Replica Sets & Sharded Clusters).
  Establish cross-region and multi-data-center replication strategies to support 24/7/365 mission-critical banking operations with minimal RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and zero RPO (Recovery Point Objective).
• Advanced Performance Engineering, Tuning & Diagnostics
  Spearhead deep-dive performance troubleshooting, query optimization, indexing reviews, execution plan analysis, and database profiling across production systems.
  Establish automated monitoring, telemetry, and observability frameworks (using Prometheus, Grafana, OEM, AppDynamics, and APM tools) to proactively detect anomalies, locking/blocking, and resource bottlenecks.
  Direct proactive capacity planning, I/O footprint optimization, and memory management across compute and storage tiers.
• Security, Vulnerability Management & Access Control
  Enforce end-to-end database security standards, including Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), data masking, tokenization, TLS encryption in-transit, and privileged access controls.
  Drive automated security patching, configuration baseline compliance (CIS Benchmarks), and rapid remediation of vulnerabilities (CVEs), ensuring zero non-compliant instances across the fleet.
  Integrate identity and credential workflows with enterprise secrets management tools (e.g., HashiCorp Vault, CyberArk) and role-based access control (RBAC).
• Database DevOps, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) & CI/CD
  Champion Database DevOps practices by integrating schema migrations and database deployments into automated CI/CD pipelines (via Harness, Tekton, Jenkins, Bitbucket/GitHub).
  Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) playbooks and configuration scripts using Ansible, Terraform, and Python/Bash automation.
  Eliminate manual operational touchpoints through self-service database provisioning and automated routine maintenance.
• Continuity of Business (COB) & Disaster Recovery (DR)
  Own the disaster recovery framework for core database estates, designing and executing regular formal COB/DR failover drills.
  Define and maintain backup and restore strategies (RMAN, storage snapshots, point-in-time recovery) to safeguard data integrity against hardware failures, corruption, and site-level disasters.
  Ensure comprehensive auditability and validation of backup retention policies aligned with financial regulatory standards.
• Governance, Risk, Audit & Regulatory Compliance
  Serve as the primary database technical authority during internal and external audit reviews, regulatory examinations, and risk assessments.
  Ensure full compliance with Citi's Information Security policies, data sovereignty regulations (e.g., GDPR, local residency laws), and financial record retention mandates.
  Maintain comprehensive technical documentation, architecture runbooks, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and operational readiness checklists.
• Technical Leadership, Mentorship & Vendor Engagement
  Provide strong technical leadership, guidance, and mentorship to senior engineers, database administrators, and offshore support teams.
  Collaborate closely with application squads, enterprise architects, site reliability engineers (SREs), and pr