Senior Database Architect

ETHOS - Talent & Advisory; Washington (District of Columbia, MD); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

ETHOS - Talent & Advisory seeks a Senior Database Architect to own the PostgreSQL estate on AWS for a federal IT client in Washington, DC. You will ensure high availability, patching, monitoring, and recovery while mentoring junior engineers.

You will implement backup and disaster recovery with Multi-AZ and read replicas, optimize SQL for analytics, and integrate with AWS services like Lambda, S3, EC2, and Glue. Public sector experience and strong security practice are preferred.

Qualifications

• Master's degree or higher with 5+ years experience or Bachelor's with 7+ years in IT.
• 10+ years as a Database Administrator or Architect.
• Deep PostgreSQL administration: installation, configuration, backup and recovery.
• Logical/physical data modeling and schema design.
• Advanced SQL and performance tuning.
• HA/DR and failover design (Multi AZ, read replicas).
• Server patching experience and ability to obtain Public Trust; onsite five days a week.

Responsibilities

• Manage and tune PostgreSQL databases on AWS RDS for high availability and performance.
• Run health checks, installations, upgrades, configuration, and patching.
• Design and own backup, DR, and failover strategies.
• Write and optimize complex SQL for analysis and reporting.
• Architect scalable, secure database solutions integrating with Lambda, S3, EC2, and Glue.
• Apply AWS security practices and agency data compliance policies.
• Monitor with Splunk, CloudWatch, and CloudTrail.
• Mentor junior and mid level engineers.

Skills

PostgreSQL

AWS RDS

HA/DR design

SQL tuning

Data modeling

Mentoring

Education

Master's degree or higher

Bachelor's degree with extensive experience

13+ years of experience in lieu of degree

Tools

Splunk

CloudWatch

CloudTrail

Job description

Our federal IT client supports one of the largest public service agencies in the country, and its PostgreSQL estate on AWS sits underneath systems that millions of Americans depend on. We are looking for a senior database architect who is equally comfortable designing for high availability and getting hands on with patching, monitoring, and recovery. You will own the health of the platform and help shape where it goes next.

What You Will Do

• Manage, secure, monitor, and tune PostgreSQL databases on AWS RDS for high availability and performance
• Run database health checks, installations, upgrades, configuration, and server patching
• Design and own backup, disaster recovery, and failover using Multi AZ deployments and read replicas
• Write and optimize complex SQL for analysis, transformation, and reporting; manage indexing, caching, and scaling
• Architect scalable, secure database solutions and integrate them with Lambda, S3, EC2, and Glue
• Apply AWS security practices (IAM, encryption, VPC, security groups) and agency data compliance policies
• Monitor with Splunk, CloudWatch, and CloudTrail
• Mentor junior and mid level engineers

Required

• Master's and 5+ years, Bachelor's and 7+ years, or 13+ years of experience in lieu of a degree; 10+ years as a Database Administrator or Architect
• Deep PostgreSQL administration: installation, configuration, backup and recovery, replication
• Logical and physical data modeling, normalization, and schema design
• Advanced SQL query writing and performance tuning
• Designing HA, DR, and failover solutions (Multi AZ, read replicas)
• Server patching experience
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust; onsite five days a week

Preferred

• Linux scripting to automate ETL and data migration jobs
• Leading requirements, design, and implementation on project work
• Architecture road maps and recommendations
• Federal agency or public sector experience
• Strong communication with analysts, data scientists, and business stakeholders