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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Principal Database Administrator / Lead DBA - **Company:** N-ask, Incorporated - **Location:** Beavercreek, OH, United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $104,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Amazon Web Services, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Big Data, C++ (Programming Language), Command-Line Interface, Cloud Computing, Cloud Database, Databases, System Configuration, Data Infrastructure, Data Integrity, Data Migration, Data Security, Data Systems, Relational Databases, Database Queries, Linux, Disaster Recovery, Distributed Data Store, Distributed Systems, Python (Programming Language), PostgreSQL, Linux System Administration, MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Azure, MongoDB, MySQL, NoSQL, Oracle (Applications), Performance Tuning, Query Optimization, Database Engines, Scripting, Cloud Platform System, Database Optimization, Software Troubleshooting, Database Performance, Database Migration, Amazon Relational Database Service, Containerization, Kubernetes, Information Technology, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) - **Published:** October 28, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.clearancejobs.com/jobs/9268319/principal-database-administrator-lead-dba ## About the Role * Bachelor's degree in a STEM discipline, such as engineering, computer science, or information technology. * 5+ years of hands-on experience in enterprise database administration, operations, and performance engineering. * Strong experience installing, configuring, administering, maintaining, monitoring, and troubleshooting enterprise database systems. * Deep, hands-on experience administering, troubleshooting, and performance-tuning at least one enterprise database platform: PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, MariaDB, or MongoDB. * Proven experience with database performance tuning, query optimization, execution plans, indexing strategies, and identifying performance bottlenecks. * Strong SQL skills and a deep understanding of relational database concepts, schema design, transactions, and data integrity. * Experience managing database availability, replication, backup and recovery, disaster recovery, and business continuity. * Experience monitoring database health, diagnosing production issues, resolving performance problems, and implementing preventive maintenance. * Experience administering databases in Linux/Unix environments, including command-line tools, scripting, and system-level troubleshooting. * Understanding of how CPU, memory, storage, I/O, networking, and database configuration affect performance and reliability. * Experience supporting large-scale databases, including multi-terabyte data environments, capacity planning, and growth management. * Experience administering high-availability or distributed database systems. * Experience deploying, operating, or monitoring databases in cloud or containerized environments, including Kubernetes. * Experience supporting database migrations, upgrades, patching, configuration changes, and platform modernization. * Ability to develop scripts or tools, preferably using Python on Linux, to automate database administration and operational tasks. * Strong troubleshooting, analytical, documentation, and problem-solving skills. * Ability to communicate technical findings and recommendations to stakeholders and collaborate effectively across engineering teams., * Security clearance: Active TS/SCI w/poly * Security+ (or higher) certification * Certifications: Industry-recognized certifications like Oracle Certified Professional (OCP), Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate, or AWS Certified Database * Operating system, networking, storage administration experience highly desired * Experience administering and supporting multiple database platforms across relational, NoSQL, and distributed database environments. * Experience/knowledge of C/C++ * Experience with cloud database technologies (AWS RDS, Oracle, MS SQL, Azure) * Familiarity with AWS Cloud products (EC2, EBS, S3, Lambda, Aurora, Dynamo DB, EMR, DMS data migration, Athena, Glue, Kinesis, SQS/SNS, etc.) * A strong understanding of the cloud computing model as it relates to enterprise productivity * Experience migrating large-scale legacy databases to modern, distributed architectures. ## Description We are looking for an experienced Principal Database Administrator / Lead DBA who enjoys getting hands-on with complex database environments and taking ownership of their performance, reliability, security, and day-to-day operations. This role is ideal for a senior DBA who can troubleshoot challenging database issues, optimize performance at scale, and ensure critical data systems remain available, secure, and responsive. You will lead the administration, maintenance, monitoring, performance tuning, and optimization of enterprise database systems supporting demanding mission requirements. You'll work directly with database engines, Linux environments, cloud infrastructure, and engineering teams to resolve issues, improve efficiency, plan capacity, and support evolving customer needs. The ideal candidate brings deep practical experience administering and tuning relational and NoSQL databases, managing high-availability environments, troubleshooting resource-intensive workloads, and supporting large-scale data platforms. You should be comfortable working at the command line, analyzing database performance, identifying bottlenecks across CPU, memory, storage, and I/O, and implementing solutions that improve system stability and throughput. While this is primarily a hands-on DBA role, you will also contribute to database architecture, infrastructure planning, migrations, and modernization efforts. You'll help establish database standards and best practices, guide technical decisions, and collaborate across engineering and systems teams to deliver scalable, reliable, and secure data solutions.