Principal Oracle Database Administrator

Principal Oracle Database Administrator

IT Pro 4-Database Admin (9791DB)

Compensation: $150,000-$160,000 (depending on experience)

Please note, this position is not eligible for H-1B or Green Card sponsorship. This position does not offer a STEM OPT training program.

The University of Minnesota is committed to fostering local talent through employment opportunities. While this position utilizes a hybrid work modality, prospective applicants must be located either in the state of Minnesota or near the Wisconsin border OR otherwise open to relocation.

The University of Minnesota is seeking a Principal Oracle Database Administrator to serve as the highest technical authority for its enterprise database environment. In this decisive leadership role, you will define the strategic architectural vision for the institution, crafting the roadmap to transition legacy infrastructure to a modern hybrid cloud environment while managing key vendor relationships to align with university goals.

As a technical leader, you will act as a primary mentor to the Oracle Database Services team and student employees, fostering a culture of professional growth. Also, this role will provide leadership in stakeholder representation and drive business value by managing the team backlog, balancing urgent feature requests with essential maintenance.

Underpinning these strategic and leadership responsibilities is your ownership of operational resilience. You will ensure business continuity for critical data like the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) data, Enterprise Reporting, Identity Management, and Department level data by designing robust disaster recovery plans, ensuring security compliance, and serving as the final escalation point for complex incidents.

• Strategy, Architecture & Vendor Management (35%)
  • Define and execute the long-term technical strategy for database services, designing the architectural roadmap for the migration of workloads to Oracle Cloud services and Azure, and engaging with other engineering teams comprising full stack solutions to deliver balanced solutions.
  • Manage strategic vendor relationships by negotiating technical specifications for licensing, support contracts, and hardware acquisitions to ensure alignment with institutional goals.
  • Recommend capital and process improvements to the unit based on an understanding of best practices and industry standards.
  • Evaluate and authorize proposed architectural changes from vendors or internal development teams to ensure alignment with institutional standards.
• Technical Leadership & Workforce Development (25%)
  • Provide mentorship, coaching, and guidance to team members, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.
  • Supervise, mentor, and direct the work of student employees, providing technical guidance and professional development opportunities to the next generation of IT professionals.
  • Serve as the final point of escalation for complex database incidents, leading the resolution of critical outages affecting enterprise systems.
  • Lead working groups, committees, and collaborative efforts to implement major infrastructure upgrades and migrations.
• Operations, Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity (25%)
  • Architect and maintain comprehensive Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity plans; oversee regular simulations and restoration tests to ensure the University can sustain critical operations during catastrophic events.
  • Perform administration and maintenance of databases.
  • Execute complex installations, upgrades, patching, backup and recovery, and performance tuning for high-availability environments.
  • Plan, coordinate, and implement security measures to ensure data integrity and compliance with FERPA and other regulatory standards.
  • Participate in an on-call rotation to provide 24/7 incident support.
• Agile Product Ownership (15%)
  • Serve as the Product Owner for the Oracle Database Services team, managing the team backlog and prioritizing work based on business value and risk mitigation.
  • Plan and prioritize work to meet commitments aligned with organizational goals, balancing business feature requests with critical…