Senior Database Administrator; DBA

The Senior Database Administrator will lead the design, optimisation, operation, and cost‑effective scaling of our GCP data platform. The role focuses on Cloud SQL (MySQL) and Big Query, with responsibility for performance, reliability, security, automation, and observability across transactional and analytical workloads.

• Administer high‑availability Cloud SQL setups.
• Perform performance tuning – indexing, partitioning, query optimisation, load balancing, and resource sizing.
• Cost‑optimise Cloud SQL and Big Query; manage lifecycle policies.
• Troubleshoot performance and incidents; lead incident response and own MTTR, RCA, and continuous improvements.
• Provide 2nd‑line DBA support, resolving escalated incidents and requests.
• Backup, restore, and disaster recovery – author DR plans, run restore drills, validate backups, and enforce retention.
• Security and compliance – manage IAM / ACLs, encryption, secrets management, access reviews, and audit logging.
• Execute database upgrades and change management – plan upgrades, create rollback plans, and perform compatibility testing.
• Automate processes using IaC (Terraform, Deployment Manager), CI/CD for schema and infra changes, runbooks, and automated remediation.
• Capacity planning and forecasting growth.
• Maintain monitoring and observability – dashboards, SLOs, logging, metrics, and actionable alerts.
• Governance – tagging, quota controls, cost monitoring, and charge‑back recommendations.
• Mentor and document – produce runbooks, knowledge bases, and coach engineers on best practices.
• Vendor and third‑party management – oversee managed‑service support relationships and SLAs.

• Extensive experience with Cloud SQL (MySQL) and Big Query; strong knowledge of indexing, query plans, schema refactoring, and OLTP patterns.
• Production experience with GCP.
• Proficiency in scripting and IaC – Terraform, Ansible, Git, Bash.
• Familiarity with tooling – Query Insights, SQL Diagnostic Manager, MySQL Workbench.
• Experience with monitoring & logging – Cloud Monitoring, New Relic or equivalent, and database alerting strategy.
• Solid understanding of security & compliance – IAM, VPC, encryption, secrets management, audit logging.
• Operational expertise – HA/replication, backups, DR, change management, and on‑call experience.
• Strong communication; documentation and runbook writing; stakeholder collaboration.
• Experience with No
  
  SQL and caching – Couchbase operations Memory store/Redis.
• Knowledge of data streaming/ETL – Data Stream, Airbyte, ORM, Laravel.
• Container and orchestration basics – Kubernetes.
• Agile methodology experience – Scrum/Kanban; user story creation, estimation, prioritisation, Jira.

• Company equity.
• 25 days annual leave + bank holidays.
• One extra day off for your birthday.
• Employee Assistance Programme.
• Access to the Perks at Work benefit platform.
• Opportunities for career development and progression.

Pay range: £65,000‑£75,000, depending on experience.

OnBuy is an equal opportunities employer. We are dedicated to building a fair and transparent workforce and promote a recruitment process that does not discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnicity, religion, disability, or age.