AWS/Redshift DBA - Freelance

Job description

Project Summary

A confidential client operating mission-critical financial market infrastructure across Europe is looking for a Senior AWS Database Administrator to join its DBA team in Porto. The team manages a broad stack of relational and non-relational database technologies, both on-premises and on AWS, supporting financial markets that operate Monday through Friday with zero tolerance for unplanned downtime.

This is a pure infrastructure DBA role. Responsibilities do not include application development, business logic, or data engineering. Ownership covers performance, availability, disaster recovery, security, and operational continuity at the database layer. The primary driver for this hire is deep, production-grade expertise in Amazon Redshift, but the role requires credible DBA coverage across additional platforms due to the shared on-call rotation.

Main Responsibilities and Key Activities

• Monitor Redshift cluster health, performance, and resource utilisation on a daily basis

• Manage and tune WLM queues to isolate and prioritise workloads effectively

• Execute VACUUM and ANALYZE strategies for large-scale tables, including environments operating in the tens of terabytes, within constrained production windows

• Diagnose and resolve performance issues using SVL/STV system views, CloudWatch metrics, and the Redshift console

• Triage and respond to incidents raised via internal ticketing, including participation in war room calls with up to 40 to 50 stakeholders and senior management

• Monitor all supported database platforms proactively, identify anomalies, and share findings with development teams in recurring alignment meetings

• Plan and execute production and disaster recovery activities during Saturday maintenance windows

• Cover on-call rotation across the full database stack, not only Redshift, requiring independent triage capability across multiple RDBMS technologies

• Perform installation, configuration, patching, and upgrades across both on-premises and AWS database environments

• Manage user access, space allocation, backup policies, and disaster recovery configurations

• Provide architectural consultation and query performance guidance to application and DevOps teams on an advisory basis

Requirements

Experience Required

• 5+ years of experience as a Database Administrator with a strong focus on AWS database services in production environments

• Expert-level, hands-on Amazon Redshift administration: cluster management, distribution and sort key strategy, WLM queue configuration, VACUUM and ANALYZE on large-scale tables, and performance diagnostics using SVL/STV system views

• Solid operational DBA experience in at least one additional RDBMS for on-call coverage: Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQL Server, either on-premises or via AWS RDS and Aurora

• All DBA experience must be evidenced as infrastructure-level hands-on work, not data engineering, analytics, or infrastructure provisioning

• Availability for Saturday production windows and monthly on-call rotation after an onboarding period of approximately two to three months

• Composure and clear communication under pressure during live critical incidents with executive stakeholders