Database Engineering Specialist

Location: Austin, United States of America

Thales people architect identity management and data protection solutions at the heart of digital security. Business and governments rely on us to bring trust to the billons of digital interactions they have with people. Our technologies and services help banks exchange funds, people cross borders, energy become smarter and much more. More than 30,000 organizations already rely on us to verify the identities of people and things, grant access to digital services, analyze vast quantities of information and encrypt data to make the connected world more secure.

This position is hybrid out of Austin, TX

Position Summary

The Cassandra database engineer is an expert across NOSQL database technologies but specifically a specialist on Cassandra database administration.
For this position, NOSQL database expertise is mandatory with a primary focus on Cassandra databases, as well as expertise in Public Cloud technology (AWS and/or GCP).
The Cassandra database engineer will be a member of Engineering team responsible for delivery of Thales customer solutions and will manage all responsibilities related to database installation, database deployment strategy, database architecture design, new product software release application, technical project planning, technical platform analysis and troubleshooting, project estimate provision, drive technical decision making, and provide overall database consultant services to the delivery and operation team.
The Database Engineering Specialist will work in close coordination with product teams, delivery teams, support & operations teams, and management teams to satisfy requirements across areas of solution support, operations and technical project delivery.

Essential Functions

The Database Engineer primary responsibility footprint:

• Database performance analysis and operations review for production database platforms
• Manage database operations activities including incident response, database alert resolution, and managing third party support engagement
• Deploy and maintain database monitoring solutions.
• Develop, design, deploy, and test backup and recovery architectures for customer database platform solutions
• Design, strategize, plan, and participate in database migration activities
• Build, test, and review technical documentation, utilize documentation set as a playbook to manage and apply production change
• Responsible for participating in maintenance window activities for hosted, on premise, and public cloud platform changes.
• Responsible for database platform deployment, installation, patching, change management, and third-party software upgrades on internal and external customer platforms.
• Responsible for database hardening procedure identification and deployment on public cloud, hosted, and on-premises platforms.
• Responsible for providing database expertise and operations support to the technical support teams and project delivery teams.
• Responsible for participating in database platform review, bench and tuning exercises, security evaluation, provide technical analysis and proactive recommendations for improvements and/or design changes for both production platforms and new software product delivery releases.

Minimum Requirements

• College degree in Computer Science
• NOSQL Database: 8-10 years Cassandra administration, other experience in other NOSQL database like MongoDB a plus
• Extensive background with public cloud database deployment, management and migration.
• Expertise in database concepts, defining standards, processes, and procedures in database deployment methodologies
• Expert in operations of high-profile production database platforms with high SLA and high-performance expectation
• High level of experience in managing change on production database platform on hosted, on premise, and cloud database platforms
• Expert in deploying high availability database architectures
• Very good knowledge of all phases of software development lifecycle: requirements analysis, specification, design, implementation, code review, testing, and release
• Relational Database: Oracle database administration (Data Guard, Goldengate, active/passive, active/active) is a plus
• Relational Database: MySQL administration experience is a plus
• Proactive, team player, and leadership qualities with strong technical background
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Highly skilled in Cassandra database administration
• Skilled in Public Cloud deployment (Cloud Formation, Terraform…), operations and monitoring (Datadog)
• Skilled in Oracle database and related tools a plus