Senior Database Administrator (MariaDB / PostgreSQL)

Red Oak Technologies; Mountain View (CA); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Red Oak Technologies is seeking an experienced Senior Database Administrator (DBA) to own production MariaDB and PostgreSQL environments in a hybrid remote-ready setup. You will ensure high availability, performance, and reliable backups in a Linux-based stack.

The role requires hands-on expertise with HA architectures, replication, failover, and disaster recovery, plus scripting in Python or Go and IaC tooling like Terraform and Ansible.

Qualifications

• Experience as Database Administrator (DBA) in production environments.
• Hands-on MariaDB HA deployment and management.
• Hands-on PostgreSQL HA deployment and management.
• Knowledge of replication, clustering, failover, backup, restore, and disaster recovery.
• Proficient with Linux (Rocky Linux/CentOS/RHEL/Ubuntu).
• Experience with Python, Go, or similar scripting languages.
• Familiarity with Terraform, Kubernetes, and Infrastructure as Code.

Responsibilities

• Administer and support highly available MariaDB and PostgreSQL environments.
• Support HA architectures, replication, clustering, failover, and disaster recovery.
• Troubleshoot replication failures and production incidents.
• Monitor health, availability, capacity, and performance.
• Tune performance and resolve slow queries.
• Develop backup, restore, and disaster recovery strategies.
• Review architecture for reliability and scalability.
• Contribute to open-source DB technologies including MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and TiDB.
• Automate provisioning and maintenance using Infrastructure as Code.
• Work with Terraform, Kubernetes, Ansible, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Develop automation tooling using Python or Go.
• Collaborate with DevOps, SRE, infra, and engineering teams.
• Expand to Redis/FoundationDB as needed.
• Participate in on-call rotation.

Skills

Database administration

HA replication troubleshooting

Linux environments

Scripting (Python/Go)

IaC tooling

CI/CD knowledge

DevOps collaboration

On-call readiness

Tools

MariaDB

PostgreSQL

TiDB

Terraform

Kubernetes

Ansible

CI/CD pipelines

Python

Go

Redis

FoundationDB

Job description

Remote – U.S.

Candidates may work remotely from any state except AL, AR, DE, IA, LA, and SC.

Bay Area candidates must be able to work hybrid from the Mountain View, CA office.

We are seeking an experienced Senior Database Administrator (DBA) with strong hands‑on expertise supporting highly available MariaDB and PostgreSQL environments.

This is a production-focused DBA role responsible for database availability, performance, reliability, backup/recovery, replication, and automation. The ideal candidate has deep experience administering open‑source databases in highly available environments and is comfortable working with Linux, Infrastructure as Code, and modern DevOps technologies.

This is not a cloud‑managed database‑only position. Candidates must have hands‑on experience administering and troubleshooting database infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities

• Administer, maintain, and support highly available MariaDB and PostgreSQL database environments.
• Support HA database architectures, replication, clustering, failover, and disaster recovery.
• Troubleshoot and recover from database incidents, including replication failures and availability issues.
• Monitor database health, availability, capacity, and performance.
• Identify and resolve slow queries, performance bottlenecks, indexing issues, and database configuration problems.
• Develop and maintain backup, restore, and disaster recovery strategies for production and non-production environments.
• Review existing database architecture and recommend improvements to reliability, scalability, performance, and data protection.
• Support and contribute to open‑source database technologies including MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and TiDB.
• Automate database provisioning, configuration, maintenance, and operational activities using Infrastructure as Code.
• Work with technologies including Terraform, Kubernetes, Ansible, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Develop database automation and operational tooling using Python, Go/Golang, or similar languages.
• Work closely with DevOps, SRE, infrastructure, architecture, and engineering teams.
• Expand into additional database technologies such as Redis and FoundationDB as needed.
• Participate in an on‑call rotation supporting production database environments.

Required Qualifications

• Strong professional experience as a Database Administrator (DBA) supporting production environments.
• Hands‑on experience administering MariaDB in a High Availability (HA) environment.
• Hands‑on experience administering PostgreSQL/Postgres in an HA environment.
• Strong understanding of database replication, clustering, failover, backup, restore, and disaster recovery.
• Experience troubleshooting and recovering from replication failures and production database incidents.
• Strong database performance tuning and query optimization experience.
• Strong experience working in Linux environments, including Rocky Linux, CentOS, RHEL, and/or Ubuntu.
• Experience with database infrastructure that is not exclusively dependent on managed cloud database services.
• Experience with Python, Go/Golang, or similar scripting/programming languages.
• Working knowledge of Terraform, Kubernetes, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
• Experience with configuration management tools; Ansible preferred.
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.
• Ability and willingness to participate in an on-call rotation.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with TiDB.
• Experience with Redis and/or FoundationDB.
• Experience supporting large-scale, highly available distributed database environments.
• Experience automating database administration and operational processes.
• Experience partnering with geographically distributed engineering, DevOps, SRE, and infrastructure teams.

What We're Looking For

We are looking for a DBA who combines strong traditional database administration skills with modern automation and infrastructure practices. You should be comfortable owning production database environments, troubleshooting complex HA and replication issues, improving database performance, and automating repetitive operational work.

MariaDB HA and PostgreSQL HA experience are key requirements for this position.