Designation: System Database administrator
Location: Bangalore
Work Mode: Hybrid
Shift Time: 11:00 Am - 8:00PM IST
Introduction to the job
We’re building a production-grade, self-managed Enterprise MongoDB platform running hybrid cloud infrastructure. Today, our estate is a mix of single instances and replica sets. Over the next 12–18 months, we will standardize operations, expand automation/monitoring, and design the path toward a global standard with multi-site resiliency. This IC-track role is the expert technical owner who sets platform standards, leads complex production problem-solving, and mentors a developing operations team while partnering directly with internal customers and application teams.
Some Of the things you will be doing:
Scope & Authority (What you will own)
- Define and own MongoDB platform standards (build/config baseline, backup & restore validation, patch/upgrade strategy, monitoring & alert thresholds, and incident runbooks).
- Lead technical direction for the roadmap to global standardization for MongoDB products (design decisions, operational model, and migration approach).
- Act as the senior escalation point for complex MongoDB incidents and performance bottlenecks; drive post-incident RCA and systemic fixes.
- Coach junior operations specialists and administrators to safely execute common tasks through documentation, checklists, and mentorship.
Some of the things you’ll be doing
Platform Engineering & Operations (Self‑Managed MongoDB on Nutanix VMs)
- Own day-to-day production administration for single instances and replica sets: provisioning, configuration, upgrades, maintenance, and operational hygiene.
- Define and enforce repeatable server build standards (naming, sizing, filesystem layout, access patterns, and environment parity across DEV/QA/UAT/PROD).
- Partner with virtualization/infrastructure teams to ensure MongoDB VMs align with required OS/VM configuration guidance and operational constraints.
- Implement a durable change process: risk assessment, rollback planning, communications, and CAB/change record readiness as required.
Backup, Recovery, and Operational Tooling
- Own backup and recovery strategy including routine restore tests and documented RPO/RTO expectations.
- Operationalize tooling (e.g., MongoDB Ops Manager or equivalent) for monitoring, automation, and backup where appropriate; standardize agent deployment and backup configuration.
- Ensure backup/restore procedures are auditable, repeatable, and transferrable across the team.
Performance Engineering & Capacity Planning
- Lead advanced troubleshooting: slow queries, index strategy, aggregation pipeline performance, replication lag, storage/IO contention, and resource saturation.
- Partner with application teams on document model design, query patterns, and index alignment to prevent collection scans and recurring performance issues.
- Create evidence-based capacity plans and right-sizing recommendations (CPU/RAM/disk/IOPS/network) for MongoDB workloads on VMs.
Security, Governance & Compliance
- Implement and maintain MongoDB security controls appropriate to self-managed deployments (authentication, authorization/RBAC, TLS/transport security, audit posture).
- Drive least-privilege access, credential lifecycle hygiene, and secure operational practices aligned with enterprise security expectations.
- Partner with security stakeholders to support hardening baselines, evidence collection, and continuous compliance where required.
Documentation, Mentoring & Customer Interface
- Create and maintain runbooks, standards, and operational checklists to reduce key-person risk and enable safe delegation.
- Mentor junior ops specialists/admins via structured enablement (pairing, lab walkthroughs, on-call coaching, and knowledge shares).
- Provide crisp, customer-ready communications during incidents and major changes; translate deep technical decisions into clear plans.
What success looks like (first 90 days)
- Complete a current-state assessment (top reliability/security/performance risks; backup validation posture; upgrade/patch cadence; operational gaps).
- Publish v1 platform standards (replica set baseline, backup/restore validation cadence, monitoring thresholds, incident/runbook library).
- Deliver a 6–12 month roadmap toward automation maturity and sharding value and readiness (prereqs, design decisions, and operational requirements).
What success looks like (6–12 months)
- Reduced production incidents via systemic fixes, better monitoring, and operational standardization (lower toil, faster MTTR).
- Clear, repeatable upgrade and change management motions with reliable rollback plans and stakeholder communications.
- A trained support bench: multiple team members can execute routine operations safely using documented procedures.
- A validated design and phased plan for sharding/multi-site resiliency, with readiness criteria and operational guardrails.
What technical skills, experience, and qualifications do you need?
Required Qualifications (Day‑1)
- 12+ years in database engineering/administration with significant, recent hands-on MongoDB production ownership.
- Strong experience operating self-managed MongoDB on Linux, including single instances and replica sets (elections/failover, replication health, recovery).
- Demonstrated ownership of backup/restore, disaster recovery thinking, and routine restore validation.
- Deep performance engineering capability (index strategy, query/aggregation analysis, replication lag triage, capacity planning).
- Strong Linux/systems fundamentals relevant to running databases on VMs (storage, IO, CPU/memory, OS services, troubleshooting).
- Excellent written and verbal communication; able to produce high-quality runbooks/standards and lead incident communications.
Required Soft Skills
- Comfort mentoring and leveling up junior administrators through structured coaching and documentation.
- Strong customer/stakeholder orientation; sets expectations, explains tradeoffs, and drives work to closure.
- Calm incident leadership and bias toward measurable outcomes.
Preferred Qualifications (Bonus / Nice-to-have)
- Experience with MongoDB Ops Manager (automation/monitoring/backup), including agent rollout and backup configuration.
- Experience planning or executing a move toward sharded clusters and developing an operational model for sharding.
- Infrastructure-as-code / automation experience (e.g., Ansible/Terraform) and CI/CD patterns for operational workflows.
- Observability tooling experience (metrics/log pipelines, alert tuning, dashboards) across database and host layers.
- MongoDB certifications (optional): Associate Database Administrator / related credentials, or equivalent demonstrated expertise.