Senior Database Administrator

❗️This position is On-Site in Belgrade, Serbia❗️

❗️Relocation Required and provided by the company❗️

About the Role

We are seeking a high-ownership, autonomous Senior Database Administrator to serve as the single point of accountability for database architecture, reliability, and data safety across our entire organization. Evolving from a traditional DBA background into a cloud-native, automation-first operator, you will manage our production MySQL environment on AWS with a view toward potential PostgreSQL migration.

About the Client

Our client is a fin-tech company with a focus on innovation and customer-centric digital banking solutions provider.

What You Will Do

• Lead Database Architecture: Serve as the senior technical authority on database architecture, performance, reliability, and data integrity across the organization.
• Manage Fleet Operations: Own end-to-end administration of production MySQL (and potential PostgreSQL) fleets, including replication topologies, backup/recovery systems, capacity planning, and performance tuning.
• Design Resilient AWS Infrastructure: Build and evolve highly available database architectures (RDS/Aurora Multi-AZ, cross-region replicas, automated failover strategies) focused on resilience and simplicity.
• Drive Disaster Recovery & Backups: Own the backup and DR strategy end-to-end—designing automated workflows, performing regular restore tests, documenting RTO/RPO, and ensuring total data recoverability.

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• Execute Zero-Downtime Migrations: Lead complex database migrations, including major version upgrades, engine changes, cloud migrations, and large schema changes with minimal to zero downtime.
• Establish Observability: Define database observability strategy using Datadog and Coralogix, establishing custom dashboards, metrics, alerting, and meaningful SLOs/SLIs.
• Lead Root-Cause Analysis: Conduct thorough postmortems for production incidents, transforming root-cause findings into durable fixes, automated checks, and runbooks.
• Optimize Performance: Perform advanced query and index optimization, execution plan analysis, and proactive tuning at scale.
• Enforce Governance & Standards: Establish and enforce standards for schema design, data access patterns, and query reviews as a senior reviewer and gatekeeper.
• Automate Workflows: Drive end-to-end automation of DBA tasks (provisioning, patching, failover drills, backup validation) using Terraform, Python, and Bash.
• Strengthen Database Security: Manage database security posture, ensuring robust encryption, IAM/least-privilege access, credential rotation, audit logging, and compliance support (SOC 2, GDPR).
• Mentor & Shape On-Call: Guide engineering teams on database best practices, act as the escalation point for complex database issues, and participate in shaping the on-call rotation.

What You Bring

• Deep DBA Experience: 7+ years of hands-on DBA experience demonstrating deep mastery of database internals.
• MySQL Mastery: Expert-level administration skills in MySQL, including replication (async/semi-sync/group replication), InnoDB internals, backup/recovery mechanics, and complex troubleshooting.
• AWS Cloud Expertise: Extensive experience running production databases on AWS (RDS/Aurora Multi-AZ, read replicas, failover mechanics) and evaluating cost/performance trade-offs.

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• Disaster Recovery Ownership: Proven track record designing, automating, and validating real-world backup and DR testing frameworks.
• Migration Leadership: Demonstrated success leading major database version upgrades, engine switches, and cloud migrations with minimal disruption and rollback planning.
• Observability Skills: Hands-on experience with monitoring tools (Datadog, Coralogix, CloudWatch) to build effective metrics and alerting systems.
• Advanced Query Tuning: Expert SQL capabilities, including execution plan analysis, indexing strategy, and query optimization at scale.
• Automation & IaC: Proficiency in scripting (Python, Bash) and Infrastructure as Code using Terraform.
• Security & Compliance Knowledge: Solid grasp of networking, security groups, IAM, encryption, and compliance standards (SOC 2, GDPR).
• Incident Response & Communication: Ability to manage incidents end-to-end and clearly articulate technical risks, trade-offs, and solutions to both engineers and executive leadership.

What's in it for you

• Generous Leave: 24 annual vacation days to support work-life balance.
• Flexible Sick Days: 6 sick days per year without requiring a medical certificate.
• Comprehensive Healthcare: Premium Health Insurance coverage up to €5,000 annually.
• Relocation Support: Complete relocation package provided for international candidates.