Sr Database Administrator
The Walt Disney Company
Responsibilities
In this role, you will take ownership of end-to-end database infrastructure across on-premises and cloud environments that support Disney's creative, customer-focused, and service-minded experiences worldwide. You will act as a proficient problem-solver and resource for colleagues with less experience, working independently with minimal guidance while occasionally leading small, low-risk initiatives that enhance system performance, resiliency, and availability. This role matters because robust database platforms are essential to delivering seamless, innovative guest and cast experiences, and success requires a skilled, detail-oriented, team-oriented administrator with strong communication and mentoring capabilities.
- Build, deploy, and ensure 24/7/365 availability of database infrastructure supporting Disney Experiences technology solutions.
- Provide operational support and administration for relational and NoSQL databases across on-premises and cloud environments, including Amazon RDS or similar database-as-a-service platforms.
- Analyze, design, and deploy fault-tolerant, distributed, and highly available database architectures for high-volume, high-availability systems.
- Perform database performance tuning, troubleshooting, and administration, including proactive identification of issues and design of creative remediation solutions.
- Plan and implement infrastructure changes through capacity forecasting, resource utilization analysis, software release cycles, and right-sizing activities.
- Implement and manage database availability monitoring, metrics, and alerting using tools such as Percona Monitoring and Management, Oracle Enterprise Manager, and cloud provider monitoring solutions.
- Develop and maintain robust backup, restore, and recovery strategies, including disaster recovery planning and execution.
- Leverage automation, Infrastructure as Code, and configuration management tooling to increase operational efficiency while ensuring system reliability and security.
- Prepare and maintain thorough technical documentation, standards, and procedures for database engineering and administration activities.
- Collaborate with internal technology teams and external partners to achieve efficient, cost-effective database implementations and serve as a technical resource on complex projects such as upgrades or migrations.
- Participate in on-call rotations and live event support, managing multiple competing priorities in a fast-paced, deadline-oriented environment.
- Provide oversight and direction to junior team members, acting as a mentor and go-to resource for database-related issues.
- Years Of Experience: 5+ years of relevant professional experience in database administration or closely related technical roles.
- Skilled Sr Database Administrator with minimum 5 years of experience in database administration or related work, operating as an independent worker and effective problem-solver.
- Proficiency with relational and NoSQL databases, including hands-on experience managing Amazon RDS or similar cloud database-as-a-service deployments.
- Strong experience with Oracle and/or PostgreSQL, including database internals, performance tuning, troubleshooting, and administration.
- Experience running, deploying, and maintaining production systems in AWS, with a focus on high availability and resiliency.
- Demonstrated ability to design and deploy fault-tolerant, distributed, and highly available database infrastructure for high availability systems.
- Experience with database availability monitoring and status reporting using tools such as Percona Monitoring and Management, Oracle Enterprise Manager, and/or cloud-native monitoring solutions.
- Well-versed in database backup, restore, recovery strategies, and disaster recovery planning and implementation.
- Ability to manage multiple competing priorities in a fast-paced environment, carrying out assignments with little coaching or guidance.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with strong interpersonal abilities to build relationships with engineering teams and leads.
- Team player who can work independently, mentor junior colleagues, and interface effectively with internal IT teams and external business partners.
- Bachelor's Degree or higher in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or a comparable technical field of study.
- Experience operating within a Database Reliability Engineering (DRE) and/or Systems Reliability Engineering (SRE) role.
- Experience running, deploying, and maintaining production systems in AWS and other cloud providers.
- Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform or CloudFormation, and configuration management solutions like Ansible or Chef.
- Understanding of and experience with Linux operating systems, networking concepts, and containerized environments.
- Experience building robust paths to production leveraging multiple lifecycles, testing, integration, and CI/CD pipelines.
- Intermediate or higher-level experience in one or more programming languages such as Python, Java, or Go.
- Experience working in Agile software development environments and using source control tools such as Git, GitLab, or GitHub.
- Certified DBA qualification and additional cloud-related certifications.