Database Architect

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Database Architect — Oracle & PostgreSQL, Cloud Migration based in Canada.

This is a senior, hands-on architecture role owning the data tier across complex enterprise cloud migration and modernization programs.

• Data Architecture Ownership: Own the end-to-end data-tier architecture for enterprise migration and modernization programs, covering current-state assessments, target-state design, migration strategy, sequencing, risks, effort, and delivery outcomes.
• Migration Strategy: Design and lead Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migrations, including schema conversion, PL/SQL-to-PL/pgSQL approaches, data type and collation differences, query rewrites, performance validation, and production readiness.
• Architecture Decisions: Evaluate and defend critical technical choices such as conversion versus rewrite versus retirement, managed versus self-managed database services, phased coexistence versus single cutover, and performance versus cost trade-offs.
• Cutover & Recovery: Design low-downtime migration approaches using CDC replication, dual-run strategies, output comparisons, rehearsals, go/no-go criteria, and realistic rollback plans.
• Performance Engineering: Personally investigate database performance issues using execution plans, traces, statistics, SQL diagnostics, and system-level analysis to determine whether bottlenecks originate in SQL, schemas, infrastructure, configuration, storage, or application behavior.
• Cloud Database Architecture: Design database infrastructure covering sizing, high availability, failover, backup and recovery, patching, version management, encryption, key management, observability, and cost optimization.
• Operational Readiness: Define the operating model transferred to managed services, including runbooks, monitoring, alerting, escalation procedures, health checks, and operational standards.
• Client Advisory: Serve as the senior technical authority in client engagements, leading architecture workshops, communicating with technical and executive stakeholders, and clearly explaining complex trade-offs and risks.
• Pre-Sales & Planning: Support proposals, statements of work, estimates, and delivery planning by defining database workstreams, sizing effort, and identifying assumptions and risks that could affect project outcomes.
• Reusable Delivery Assets: Develop reference architectures, migration playbooks, conversion patterns, assessment tools, and automation that improve consistency and accelerate future engagements.
• AI-Assisted Engineering: Incorporate agentic and AI-enabled workflows into technical delivery to accelerate schema and stored-procedure conversion, testing, log and execution-plan analysis, and documentation while validating AI-generated output carefully.
• Technical Leadership: Review database architecture and engineering work, mentor engineers at different levels, establish technical standards, and document architectural decisions and the reasoning behind them.

• Database Experience: 10+ years of experience in database engineering, administration, data platforms, or related disciplines, including several years in an architect or principal-level position with design authority over business-critical systems.
• Oracle Expertise: Deep hands-on knowledge of Oracle and PL/SQL, including packages, procedures, functions, triggers, cursors, sequences, dynamic SQL, partitioning, RMAN, Data Guard, AWR, ASH, execution plans, optimizer statistics, and SQL tuning.
• PostgreSQL Expertise: Strong production experience with PostgreSQL and PL/pgSQL, including EXPLAIN ANALYZE, indexing, partitioning, autovacuum, bloat management, connection pooling, replication, WAL, PITR, and production extensions such as pg_stat_statements, pg_repack, postgres_fdw, and pgaudit.
• Dual-Platform Depth: Proven expertise in both Oracle and PostgreSQL is essential; significant depth in only one database platform will not be sufficient.
• Migration Track Record: Demonstrated experience architecting Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migrations through production, with the ability to explain architectural decisions, challenges encountered, lessons learned, and improvements made.
• Cloud Architecture: Strong cloud infrastructure knowledge, ideally within AWS, including RDS, Aurora PostgreSQL, RDS for Oracle or Oracle on EC2, VPC networking, IAM, KMS, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch, and Performance Insights.
• Automation & Infrastructure as Code: Experience with Terraform or CloudFormation and scripting with Python, Bash, PowerShell, or comparable technologies.
• Application Understanding: Ability to read and understand application code and database access patterns and collaborate effectively with developers and solution architects.
• AI & Modern Tooling: Practical experience using agentic AI tools within technical delivery workflows, combined with sound judgment to validate AI-generated output.