Database & Data Platform Administrator

Job DetailsJob Location: Penn Center - Denver, CO 80203Position Type: Full TimeSalary Range: $105,000.00 - $125,000.00 SalaryJob Shift: DaySummary of Job Responsibilities

This position is dual role responsible for the reliability, security, and performance of on-premises and cloud data platforms supporting Colorado PERA systems. Key responsibilities include ensuring data availability by proactively monitoring database and data platform health, enforcing database standards and governance, troubleshooting issues, and advancing database management practices and policies. The position partners across IT and business teams to analyze requirements, design and implement data solutions, and drive continuous process improvements. It supports both the delivery of new data platform capabilities and the enhancement and maintenance of existing environments. Additionally, this role contributes to strategic planning alignment and provides guidance and mentorship to less-experienced database administrators, data engineers, and developers.

Ideal Candidate Statement

We are seeking a tenacious problem-solver who thrives in complex environments and takes full ownership of hybrid data platforms. This role requires deep, hands-on expertise in on-premises database technologies (Oracle, DB2, SQL Server) along with experience managing cloud-based platforms such as Snowflake and PostgreSQL.  The ideal candidate will have strong experience with modern data ecosystem components, including ELT pipelines, metadata management, master data management (MDM), CI/CD, and CDC practices. This individual will emphasize operational excellence, platform modernization, and developer enablement by developing and supporting DataOps practices and delivering scalable, secure, and high-performing database environments across development, test, and production.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Employees are held accountable for all duties of the job. Individuals must be able to perform these duties with or without reasonable accommodation.

Advanced Data Platform Engineering

DataOps & Automation

Drives DataOps maturity through CI/CD, automation, and observability best practices
Promotes DataOps practices including automated testing, version control, and deployment orchestration
Implements automated promotion processes and environment synchronization, including data overlays


Platform Reliability & Resilience

Ensures platform reliability through proactive monitoring, incident prevention, and resilience engineering
Delivers systems with built-in fault tolerance, backup/recovery strategies, and disaster recovery capabilities


Platform Optimization & Modernization

Leads hybrid platform optimization and modernization initiatives
Contributes to enterprise data strategy and long-term platform evolution


Data Governance & Integrity

Minimizes data duplication and enforces “single source of truth” principles aligned with MDM strategies
Oversees environment consistency and integrity across development, test, and production

Systems Engineering & Project Ownership

Project Ownership

Owns assigned data platform projects by providing analysis, development, testing, and deployment; contributes to larger initiatives through effective collaboration with IT, AppDev and business SMEs.


Technical Solutioning

Leverages deep understanding of business requirements to design and implement scalable, high-performance solutions using existing and new platforms and technologies, ensuring reliability, maintainability, and alignment with strategic objectives.


Technical Design

Leads technical approach discussions and independently develops/proposes designs for complex data projects that meet established standards.


Lead Implementation

Translates architectural designs into complex technical builds. Leads the technical delivery of major projects and peer-reviews all designs for lean management efficiency

Operational Support & Stability

Troubleshooting

Troubleshoots data systems issues (Tier 1/Tier 2) and resolves incidents (dependent on level: common issues / most issues / all issues without escalation).


24/7 On-Call

Participates in the 24/7 data systems on-call rotation, taking tenacious ownership of system stability and minimizing downtime.
Document new fixes discovered during the shift and conducts post-incident review to improve the team's knowledge.


Operational Excellence

Leads the stability of the entire data platform suite. Proactively identifies systemic risks and builds automated recovery/monitoring solutions. Works with the Enterprise Data Architect to optimize and reduce technical debt.


Platform Upgrades and Patching

Manages data platform upgrades and patching in compliance with policy.

Vendor Coordination

Acts as a technical liaison or Subject Matter Expert when working with vendors to resolve licensing, p