PostgreSQL Database Consultant

About vacancy

Our partner, builds and operates durable, distributed systems for enterprise clients, with a strong focus on critical data platforms, heavy on PostgreSQL performance tuning, troubleshooting, stabilization, and optimization of large-scale, self-managed database environments.

Qualifications

Deep, production experience administering PostgreSQL on self-managed, on-premise infrastructure (not only managed services like RDS or Cloud SQL);

Expert knowledge of vacuum and autovacuum: tuning thresholds and cost limits, diagnosing and remediating table and index bloat, and preventing transaction ID wraparound;

Strong indexing expertise: choosing among B-tree, GIN, GiST, BRIN, partial, and covering indexes, identifying missing, unused, and duplicate indexes, and rebuilding indexes safely in production;

Mastery of PostgreSQL configuration: memory settings, connection limits, checkpoints, WAL, and planner parameters, and the ability to audit an existing configuration and justify every change;

Query performance analysis using EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS), pg_stat_statements, and the pg_stat_* views;

Experience with replication and high availability (streaming and logical replication, Patroni, repmgr, or similar) and failover testing;

Backup, restore, and point-in-time recovery experience (pgBackRest, Barman, or similar), including regular restore validation;

Connection pooling with PgBouncer or Pgpool-II;

Monitoring and alerting for Postgres (Prometheus postgres_exporter, pgwatch, Datadog, or similar) focused on catching problems before they become outages;

Solid Linux administration skills as they relate to database hosts: storage, filesystems, kernel parameters, and resource contention;

Incident response and root cause analysis experience, including writing clear postmortems and remediation plans.

Will be a plus

Configuration management for database fleets (Ansible or similar) so settings are consistent, reviewed, and repeatable;

Writing runbooks and maintenance procedures that client teams can own after an engagement;

Capacity planning and performance baselining;

Major version upgrades and schema migrations with minimal downtime;

Working within change management processes in large, regulated enterprises;

Security hardening: roles and privileges, pg_hba configuration, TLS, and auditing (pgAudit);

Running Postgres on Kubernetes (CloudNativePG, Crunchy Postgres Operator, or similar);

Scripting and automation in Python, Bash, or Go;

Experience with other relational databases (Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL);

Responsibilities

Stabilize critical systems. Audit configuration, maintenance, and indexing across enterprise PostgreSQL environments, identify the root causes of instability, and deliver fixes that measurably reduce incidents;

Tune for performance and reliability. Optimize vacuum strategy, indexing, queries, and configuration so databases stay healthy under real production load;

Prevent recurrence. Put monitoring, alerting, and runbooks in place so problems are caught early and client teams know how to respond;

Consult and manage. Consult with clients to build outcome-driven platforms, guiding them through the process, identifying potential problems and unknowns, and tackling challenges;

Travel. This is a remote, full-time position that requires the ability to travel. We travel an average of 3 to 5 days every quarter, and we'll always do our best to work with your schedule;

Teach. We'll discuss opportunities for you to present at conferences, attend and give training, plan and run meetups or local groups, and create various kinds of content in your expertise.

Benefits & Social Package

Competitive salary and annual bonus opportunity;

Completely remote work with flexible hours;

401(k) matching;

4 weeks of paid time off in addition to 8 paid holidays;

Health, dental, and vision insurance offerings;

Paid maternity and paternity leave;

STD, LTD, and Life Insurance coverage.