Database System Engineer (NWS 00958)

North Wind Services (NWS) is a high performing, low risk company with a successful history of contributing to their client’s missions. NWS executes and manages a wide range of technical services such as environmental investigation and restoration, construction, demolition, radioactive and hazardous waste management, public communication/involvement, information management, health and safety, industrial hygiene, and emergency response/HAZMAT services.

North Wind Services is actively seeking individuals who can contribute to national security within the science, technology, and engineering fields as part of our supplemental labor team at vital federal research and development installations supporting the Department of Energy. Qualified applicants must be a US citizen, at least 18 years of age, and able to meet pre-employment requirements including any required physicals, drug screen, and/or background investigation to satisfy clearance requirements from the Department of Energy.

Successful candidates will be employees of NWS supporting the missions of their federal client, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, CA. Pay, benefits, Human Resources, and employment management functions are all provided by NWS. As an NWS employee working at LLNL, within the client’s environment, you will complete day-to-day tasks, with direction from technical personnel directly employed by LLNL.

The Computing Directorate has an opening within the Enterprise Infrastructure Services (EIS) Division for a Database System Engineer. The successful candidate will support the database administration activities required to manage the database infrastructure and to keep systems available, fast, resilient, and secure. This position is in support of the Strategic Deterrence Applications Program and Nuclear Security Enterprise-wide (NSE) PRIDE Program. Business needs dictate that this position requires an on-site presence multiple days a week. Therefore, telecommuting options will be limited.

Essential Duties

• Build and operate reliable database platforms using practices such as monitoring, alerting, and continuous improvement.
• Automate repetitive work, including provisioning, patching, upgrades, backups, and compliance, to improve system consistency and reduce outages.
• Provide database administration support for Oracle, MySQL, MS SQL Server, MongoDB, Cassandra, PostgreSQL, and DynamoDB databases.
• Support database management system design, architecture, and migration activities involving cloud-based services, containerization, and cross-platform database transitions.
• Create and maintain non-production database environments for development and quality assurance activities.
• Tune queries, review database data models, and help improve application performance and database cybersecurity posture.
• Build dashboards, alerts, and runbooks from logs and metrics, and participate in incident response and post-incident reviews.
• Support enterprise COTS application implementation, configuration, triage, and customization efforts.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. DOE Q-level security clearance, which requires U.S. Citizenship.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Management Information Systems, or a related field, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Broad experience leveraging automation and orchestration to build, provision, patch, and/or secure database services within a production environment.
• Demonstrated ability to implement and follow Database Reliability Engineering practices to ensure database availability, performance, scalability, resilience, monitoring, backup and recovery, and operational excellence.
• Broad experience administering application servers such as WebLogic and Tomcat, including installation, configuration, patching, deployment, performance tuning, and troubleshooting.
• Broad experience administering Oracle, MS SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and/or MySQL databases in a production environment, and experience with one or more development tools and languages such as SQL, Oracle Forms/Reports, PL/SQL, Java, or Python.
• Broad experience in Windows and/or Linux operating system administration, security, performance tuning, enterprise-class storage array usage and integration within a database environment, and database backup and recovery procedures, software, strategies, and verification methodologies.
• Broad experience utilizing observability and infrastructure monitoring tools such as Oracle Enterprise Manager, Datadog, Grafana, SQL Server Management Studio, and/or Icinga for proactive system monitoring, alert management, and database administration.
• Proficient verbal and written communication skills necessary to effectively collaborate in a team environment and present and explain technical information.
• Ability to work outside normal business hours to provide support for production infrastructure patching, upgrades, testing, and the ability to work on-premises to support job duties.

Desired Skills, Knowledge and Abilities

• Experience developing and using Ansible, SCCM, Python, and Unix/PowerShell shell scripting to automate and orchestrate database and application infrastructures.
• Experience leveraging containerization to deliver database and mid-tier services to meet customer needs and managing database and application infrastructures within a highly secure and compliance-driven environment.

North Wind offers a competitive pay and benefits package to include health, life, and disability insurance benefits, 401(k) with company match, generous paid leave, and tuition reimbursement for eligible employees. As a company, we are committed to employee wellness, professional development, and work-life balance. We value safety, reliability, and commitment to our people. For more information about benefits or hiring philosophy, visit the North Wind Career Opportunities Page.