AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.
At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived.
We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD.
We are seeking an experienced Senior Cloud Engineer with strong Database Administration and Cloud Database Operations expertise, specifically in MySQL and PostgreSQL environments. The role focuses on managing, optimizing, securing, automating, and supporting cloud-native database platforms across AWS, Azure, and GCP environments. The ideal candidate should possess strong operational experience in cloud-managed database services, database performance tuning, backup and recovery, high availability, monitoring, automation, incident management, and customer-facing managed services operations. This role requires deep technical expertise in cloud database ecosystems, strong troubleshooting capability, and the ability to independently manage complex production database environments.
- Lead the day-2 management, support, and continuous improvement of contracted and onboard cloud-managed database platforms across customer environments.
- Own complex database incidents, escalations, and problem investigations involving availability, performance, replication, connectivity, failed jobs, schema issues, storage growth, backup failures, restore events, and recovery scenarios.
- Administer and optimize contracted cloud-managed database services across AWS, Azure, and GCP, including approved relational, NoSQL, in-memory, and our supported analytics platforms.
- Plan and execute approved database operational changes and lifecycle activities including scaling where supported, parameter changes, maintenance coordination, backup validation, restore testing, failover readiness validation, and platform hygiene in compliance with client change control procedures.
- Perform database performance management activities including query analysis, slow-query identification, missing/duplicate/unused index analysis, execution plan review, regression detection, wait-state and lock contention analysis, parameter tuning within approved change windows, and performance baseline and trend tracking.
- Validate and support backup, restore, retention, point-in-time recovery, replication health, high-availability configuration, failover readiness, and database-layer recovery operations within the technical capabilities of the platform and the approved service scope.
- Validate and support database security and compliance posture, including encryption-at-rest and encryption-in transit settings, audit logging and retention validation, CIS benchmark assessment, and network access control assessment for contracted database platforms.
- Coordinate operational readiness input for separately scoped migration, upgrade, or modernization efforts when required, while maintaining day-2 operational support for in-scope database platforms.
- Maintain monitoring, threshold-based alerting, runbooks, operational documentation, capacity tracking, and health checks for contracted database instances, including alert triage, acknowledgment, and initial remediation within contracted response expectations.
- Use approved operational tooling, SQL, scripting, and existing automation capabilities to improve repeatability and service delivery, while aligning any new automation development to separately scoped project work when required.
- Partner with client application and infrastructure teams on cross-tier incidents, approved operational changes, workload onboarding, and production operational requirements within the contracted service scope.
- Mentor Cloud Engineers and other team members on cloud database operations, troubleshooting methods, standards, and best practices; review work for quality and completeness.
- Follow and reinforce ITSM and client change control processes for incident, request, problem, and change management, including pre-change impact assessment, rollback planning, emergency change handling, RCA documentation for SEV-1 and SEV-2 incidents, and customer-facing status communication; participate in after hours/on-call support for critical incidents and approved changes as needed.
- Escalate platform-level issues to cloud provider support and manage provider support cases on behalf of the client when required.
- Track engine minor version releases and associated CVEs for contracted database platforms and coordinate patch planning within the boundaries of the service scope; major engine version upgrades are handled through separate project scoping.
- Prepare and deliver recurring service governance outputs, including weekly operational touchpoints, monthly operational reporting, quarterly business reviews, and ad hoc reporting within the monthly allocation of the service.
- Other job duties as assigned.
- Minimum Required - 5+ years in database administration, database engineering, or database management.
- Experience in cloud operations, data platform operations, infrastructure support, or managed services support, including work in production environments.
- Specialized hands-on experience with cloud-native managed database platforms in at least one major public cloud provider, with the ability to lead complex administration and troubleshooting activities for production workloads.
- Strong working knowledge of SQL and database fundamentals including indexing, query plans, locking and concurrency, transactions, replication concepts, high availability, backup and restore, recovery models, and capacity management.
- Experience administering or supporting relational database engines such as SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, or Oracle in managed cloud database services or equivalent production environments.
- Experience leading complex incidents, database performance management, backup and recovery validation, failover readiness activities, minor version and patch planning, and operational change execution in live production environments.
- Experience with cloud database security, private connectivity, encryption, auditing, identity and access controls, network access controls, and operational compliance requirements.
- Preferred - Experience in a managed services, consulting, or multi-customer support environment, ideally supporting enterprise customers with cloud-native database platforms.
- Experience supporting more than one public cloud database ecosystem or service model, including relational, NoSQL, distributed, cache, analytics, or serverless database platforms.
- Working knowledge of automation, scripting, infrastructure as code, observability, and cloud-native monitoring tools used to improve database operations and service delivery.
- Experience supporting operational readiness, replication health, backup and restore validation, performance tuning, and change execution for cloud-managed database platforms in ongoing production operations.
- Relevant cloud, database, data platform, Kubernetes or operations certifications are a plus.
- Advanced troubleshooting, performance tuning, operational execution, and issue ownership skills in cloud-native database production environments.
- Ability to independently own complex and high-risk operational database work, drive resolution across multiple teams, and make sound escalation decisions during incidents, approved changes, failover events, and recovery scenarios within the contracted service scope.
- Strong customer-facing verbal and written communication skills for technical, operational, and governance conversations involving database health, risk, capacity, performance, resilience, security posture, service reporting, and ongoing optimization.
- Strong documentation discipline, attention to detail, and respect for change control, data integrity, service quality, and operational process.
- Strong working knowledge of managed database architecture, database engine behavior, replication models, backup and restore patterns, failover concepts, private networking, encryption, auditing, and database security controls.
- Strong working knowledge of cloud-native relational, NoSQL, distributed, cache, and analytics database services, including how managed service capabilities affect administration, reliability, performance, and operational responsibility.
- Ability to interpret database telemetry, logs, query statistics, wait events, capacity signals, backup status, replication health, and cloud provider monitoring data to identify risk and prioritize action.
- Ability to advise customers and client teams on database operational readiness, performance constraints, capacity drivers, patch and maintenance considerations, and production supportability within contracted service boundaries.
- Ability to mentor others, review technical work, promote standards, and contribute to continuous improvement of cloud database operations and service delivery.
- Working knowledge of SQL automation, scripting, infrastructure as code, monitoring, observability, and related DevOps and platform concepts as supporting capabilities that improve repeatability and scale.
- Strong understanding of contracted-scope delivery guardrails, including onboarded platform boundaries, excluded work categories, and the distinction between in-scope operational support and separately scoped project work.
- Ability to travel as required.
Cloud Platforms • Amazon Web Services (AWS) • Microsoft Azure • Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Database Technologies o MySQL o PostgreSQL o MariaDB o Microsoft SQL Server o Oracle Database o Amazon Aurora o Amazon RDS o Azure Database for MySQL o Azure Database for PostgreSQL o Azure SQL Database o Google Cloud SQL o AlloyDB
Certifications (Preferred)
AWS • AWS Certified Database – Specialty • AWS Solutions Architect Associate/Professional
Azure • Azure Database Administrator Associate • Azure Solutions Architect Expert
GCP • Professional Cloud Database Engineer • Professional Cloud Architect
Why AHEAD:
Through our daily work and internal groups like Moving Women AHEAD and RISE AHEAD, we value and benefit from diversity of people, ideas, experience, and everything in between.
We fuel growth by stacking our office with top-notch technologies in a multi-million-dollar lab, by encouraging cross department training and development, sponsoring certifications and credentials for continued learning.
India Employment Benefits include:
Comprehensive health insurance coverage for employees, with options to extend coverage to dependents
Paid time off and company holidays, along with additional leave benefits as per policy
Flexible work arrangements, supporting work-life balance
Learning and development opportunities to support continuous growth and upskilling
Employee wellness initiatives and programs focused on physical and mental well-being
Retirement and statutory benefits in line with India regulations
Inclusive and people-first culture, with a strong focus on collaboration and ownership
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.
