Job Description
Role/Job title: Oracle DBA
Work Location: Coventry
Role type: Contract InsideIR35
Mode of working: Hybrid 2 Days/week
Duration of assignment: 6 months
The Role:
We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Database Administrator (L3) to take ownership of mission-critical database platforms across a complex enterprise environment.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role, where you will act as the highest internal escalation point, lead major incident recovery, and shape the reliability, resilience, and performance of our database services.
Your responsibilities:
* Own and lead resolution of critical (P1/P2) database incidents
* Perform deep root cause analysis with preventative actions
* Act as the final escalation point before vendor engagement
* Design and approve HA/DR and backup architectures
* Govern high-risk changes, releases, and migrations
* Reduce repeat incidents and technical debt
* Improve monitoring, alerting, and observability
* Lead vendor escalations and support cases
* Mentor L1/L2 DBAs and uplift team capability
* Define and enforce standards and operational playbooks
* Incident Authority
* Authority to take real-time technical decisions during major incidents including failover, switchover, and rollback to restore services safely.
Your Profile
Technical Skills & Experience
Oracle Expertise (Core Requirement)
* Deep hands-on experience with Oracle 12c, 19c, 23ai
* Expert-level knowledge of:
* Oracle RAC (design, administration, troubleshooting)
* Data Guard (physical standby, switchover/failover, broker)
* ASM (disk groups, performance tuning, rebalancing, failure handling)
* RMAN (backup optimisation, recovery scenarios, catalog management)
Advanced Oracle Capabilities
* Strong expertise in:
* Oracle performance tuning (AWR, ASH, ADDM, SQL Tuning Advisor)
* SQL and PL/SQL troubleshooting and optimization
* Execution plan analysis and query refactoring
* Hands-on experience with:
* Partitioning strategies and large database (VLDB) management
* Oracle Multitenant Architecture (CDB/PDB administration)
* Patching & upgrades (PSU/RU, out-of-place patching, datapatch)
* Database security (TDE, auditing, roles/privileges, encryption)
* Space and storage management, capacity planning
* Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM / Cloud Control) for monitoring and diagnostics
* High Availability, DR & Resilience
* Design and implementation of robust:
* HA/DR architectures (RAC + Data Guard combinations)
* Backup and recovery strategies aligned to RPO/RTO
* Failover testing and DR drills
* Platforms & Infrastructure
* Strong proficiency in:
* Linux ,Solaris and AIX
* Experience with:
* Cloud-based database deployments ( AWS/IBM cloud )
* Cross-Platform Database Skills
* Excellent working knowledge of:
* SQL Server
* DB2
* PostgreSQL
* What We’re Looking For
* Strong technical skills
* Strong incident leadership and decision-making under pressure
* Clear communicator across technical and business stakeholders
* High degree of ownership, accountability, and resilience
* Passion for mentoring and knowledge sharing
* Focus on continuous improvement and automation