Database Administrator

Our client is an industrial Commodities Group, with offices in several countries around the world. They actively source, refine, market and trade Crude Oil and Oil products, and associated financial derivatives.

The Database Administrator is responsible for the availability, performance, integrity and security of the Group’s database estate, which is deployed across multiple operating sites and supported centrally from the office in Malta.

Working within a heterogeneous environment built primarily on Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle, the postholder will act as a subject matter expert on all database matters – from day-to-day operational administration and incident resolution through to capacity planning, resilience, upgrade planning and the design of new database solutions.

Reporting directly to the Group Chief Technology Officer, the role combines hands-on technical delivery with a degree of governance and standard setting: the postholder will be expected to bring consistency to database practice across sites that may currently operate to differing local standards.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Database Administration and Operations:

• Install, configure, patch, optimize, upgrade and decommission database instances across Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle environments, both on-premises and cloud-hosted.
• Administer the Group database estate across all supported sites, ensuring consistent build standards, naming conventions and configuration baselines.
• Monitor database health, availability and resource consumption proactively, acting on alerts before they develop into service-affecting incidents.
• Manage schema changes, database refreshes and data migrations in a controlled manner, in line with the Group change management process.
• Maintain accurate documentation of the database estate, including instance inventories, configuration records, dependencies and operational runbooks.

Availability, Backup and Disaster Recovery:

• Design, implement and maintain backup and recovery strategies appropriate to the criticality and recovery objectives (RPO/RTO) of each system.
• Test restores and recovery procedures on a scheduled basis and evidence the results.
• Implement and maintain high availability and resilience technologies such as Always On Availability Groups, failover clustering, log shipping, Oracle Data Guard and RAC where appropriate.
• Contribute to Group business continuity and disaster recovery planning and participate in DR test exercises.

Performance and Capacity Management:

• Monitor, analyse and tune database performance, including query and execution plan analysis, indexing strategy, statistics maintenance and instance-level configuration.
• Work with developers and application vendors to review and optimise SQL, stored procedures and data access patterns.
• Undertake capacity planning and forecast storage, memory and compute growth, providing input to the annual technology budget.
• Establish and report on performance and availability metrics for database services across sites.

Security, Compliance and Data Governance:

• Administer database security, including authentication, role-based access control, privilege reviews and segregation of duties.
• Implement data protection controls such as encryption at rest and in transit, data masking and auditing of privileged activity.
• Ensure database practice supports the Group’s obligations under the GDPR and any applicable sector or local regulatory requirements in the jurisdictions in which the Group operates.
• Support internal and external audits by providing evidence, remediating findings and maintaining appropriate control documentation.
• Manage database patching and vulnerability remediation in line with the Group security policy.

Multi-Site Support and Service Delivery:

• Provide second- and third-line database support to all Group sites, prioritising and resolving incidents and service requests within agreed service levels.
• Act as escalation point for database-related major incidents, including participation in an on-call rota where required.
• Carry out root cause analysis on recurring issues and drive permanent corrective action.
• Build effective working relationships with local IT contacts at each site, accommodating differences in time zone, language and local working practice.
• Liaise with third-party software vendors, hosting providers and support partners to resolve issues and manage escalations.

Projects, Architecture and Continuous Improvement:

• Contribute to the design of new database solutions and to the evaluation of database platforms, tooling and licensing options.
• Provide database input into infrastructure projects, application deployments, site integrations and cloud migration activity.
• Automate routine administration, monitoring and reporting tasks to improve reliability and reduce manual effort.
• Define and promote Group-wide database standards, policies and best practice, and support their adoption at site level.
• Advise the CTO on database risk, technical debt, end-of-life platforms and opportunities for consolidation or modernisation.
• Provide knowledge transfer, guidance and informal mentoring to IT colleagues and application teams across the Group.

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Essential:

• A degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or a related discipline, or equivalent demonstrable professional experience.
• Substantial experience in a dedicated DBA role, typically five or more years, within a production environment of comparable scale and criticality.
• Proven hands-on administration of both Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle in a live production setting.
• Experience of supporting users or systems at more than one physical site or in more than one jurisdiction.
• Fluency in written and spoken English.

Desirable:

• Relevant professional certification, such as Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) or a current Microsoft data platform certification.
• Experience of database estates within a group or multi-entity structure, including consolidation or post-acquisition integration work.
• Exposure to additional database platforms, including PostgreSQL, MySQL or MongoDB.
• Experience of infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines or database DevOps tooling.
• Knowledge of data warehousing, reporting or analytics platforms.
• Additional language skills relevant to the Group’s operating locations.