Job Description

Deadline Date: Friday 4 September 2026

Requirement: MySQL / PostgreSQL DBA

Location: Brussels, BE

Full Time On-Site: Yes

Time On-Site: 100%

Total Scope of the request (hours): 418

Required Start Date: 11 October 2026

End Contract Date: 31 December 2026

Required Security Clearance: NATO SECRET

Duties & Role:

Operational DBA Duties

• Install, configure, maintain and upgrade standalone and/or clustered instances: PostgreSQL 12+, MySQL 8.0+
• Perform routine maintenance (schema housekeeping, index maintenance, statistics updates, data retention support).
• Manage users, roles, privileges, and authentication methods according to least-privilege principles.
• Manage storage growth and capacity forecasting (disk usage, table growth trends, partitioning/archiving recommendations).
• Troubleshoot complex production issues including data corruption, replication failures and performance degradation
• Maintain environment consistency across DEV/UAT/PROD where applicable.
• Perform Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for critical incidents
• Coordinate with application and infrastructure teams

Advanced monitoring and performance tuning

• Monitor and analyse database health and performance metrics: Lock contention, deadlocks, wait events; Replication lag; Resource utilization (CPU, memory, I/O)
• Query performance analysis and optimization: o PostgreSQL: EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS); MySQL: Query optimization, execution plans, InnoDB tuning
• Index strategy design and maintenance
• Identification and remediation of locking, contention, and deadlocks
• Capacity planning and workload growth forecasting Implementation and management of backup and recovery strategies
• PostgreSQL: Physical backups (pg_basebackup); Logical backups (pg_dump, pg_dumpall); WAL archiving and Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR)
• MySQL: Logical and physical backups (mysqldump, MySQL shell, Percona, XtraBackup); Point-in-Time Recovery (binlog-based)
• Both Platforms: Backup strategy implementation and validation; Periodic backup and recovery testing

Design and operate High Availability & Disaster Recovery solutions

• PostgreSQL: Streaming replication (physical and logical); Synchronous and asynchronous replication
• MySQL: Asynchronous and semi-synchronous replication; High availability architectures (InnoDB Cluster, Group Replication)
• Both Platforms: Automated failover and switchover support; Disaster recovery documentation and runbooks

Enforce database security best practices

• Role-based access control and privilege management
• Authentication and password policy enforcement
• TLS/SSL encryption
• Audit logging and compliance support
• Security hardening and vulnerability remediation

Maintenance & Lifecycle Management

• Patch management and minor version upgrades
• Major version upgrade planning and execution
• Schema change review and deployment support
• End-of-life planning and platform recommendations

Requirements

Skills, Knowledge & Experience:

• The candidate must have a currently active NATO SECRET security clearance
• 5+ years hands-on experience in at least one of the above database technologies (MySQL or PostgreSQL) and 2+ years of experience in the second database technology (MySQL or PostgreSQL)
• MySQL: Strong knowledge of MySQL architecture, storage engines (InnoDB); Hands-on experience with backup tools like mysqldump, MySQL shell, Percona, XtraBackup
• PostgreSQL: Deep understanding of PostgreSQL internals; Experience managing large datasets, storage growth, autovacuum and index maintenance; Experience with WAL and archiving; Experience managing PostgreSQL extensions
• Experience with SQL optimization, indexing, and query execution plans.
• Strong Linux administration skills (system resources, I/O, file systems, network basics) relevant to database performance.
• Knowledge of security best practices (TLS, privilege management, audit/logging, secure configuration).
• Automation mindset: experienced with scripting (Bash/Python/Perl).

Preferred/Advanced skills:

• MySQL: Experience with cloud-managed MySQL platforms (AWS RDS/Aurora, GCP Cloud SQL, Azure Database for MySQL); Familiarity with MySQL Shell, Orachestrator, ProxySQL or HAProxy
• PostgreSQL: Practical experience with pgvector; Knowledge of HNSW and IVFFlat indexes and their tuning parameters; Experience with containerized or Kubernetes-based database deployments; Understanding of pgvector upgrades and compatibility with PostgreSQL versions