Requirement: MySQL / PostgreSQL DBA
Location: Brussels, BELGIUM
Full Time On-Site: Yes
Time On-Site: 100%
Not to Exceed Rate: 95 EUR
Total Scope of the request (hours): 418
Required Start Date: 11 October 2026
End Contract Date: 31 December 2026
Required Security Clearance: NATO SECRET
Please do NOT apply for any NATO contract positions unless you meet ALL the following criteria:
- Current National or NATO SECRET clearance
- Nationality of one of the NATO member countries
- Current work visa for the specific location if applying for an in-country position
Duties & Role:
Operational DBA Duties:
- Install, configure, maintain and upgrade standalone and/or clustered instances: PostgreSQL 12+, MySQL 8.0+
- Perform routine maintenance (schema housekeeping, index maintenance, statistics updates, data retention support).
- Manage users, roles, privileges, and authentication methods according to least-privilege principles.
- Manage storage growth and capacity forecasting (disk usage, table growth trends, partitioning/archiving recommendations).
- Troubleshoot complex production issues including data corruption, replication failures and performance degradation
- Maintain environment consistency across DEV/UAT/PROD where applicable.
- Perform Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for critical incidents
- Coordinate with application and infrastructure teams
- Monitor and analyse database health and performance metrics: Lock contention, deadlocks, wait events; Replication lag; Resource utilization (CPU, memory, I/O)
- Query performance analysis and optimization: o PostgreSQL: EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS); MySQL: Query optimization, execution plans, InnoDB tuning
- Index strategy design and maintenance
- Identification and remediation of locking, contention, and deadlocks
- Capacity planning and workload growth forecasting Implementation and management of backup and recovery strategies
- PostgreSQL: Physical backups (pg_basebackup); Logical backups (pg_dump, pg_dumpall); WAL archiving and Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR)
- MySQL: Logical and physical backups (mysqldump, MySQL shell, Percona, XtraBackup); Point-in-Time Recovery (binlog-based)
- Both Platforms: Backup strategy implementation and validation; Periodic backup and recovery testing
- PostgreSQL: Streaming replication (physical and logical); Synchronous and asynchronous replication
- MySQL: Asynchronous and semi-synchronous replication; High availability architectures (InnoDB Cluster, Group Replication)
- Both Platforms: Automated failover and switchover support; Disaster recovery documentation and runbooks
- Role-based access control and privilege management
- Authentication and password policy enforcement
- TLS/SSL encryption
- Audit logging and compliance support
- Security hardening and vulnerability remediation
- Patch management and minor version upgrades
- Major version upgrade planning and execution
- Schema change review and deployment support
- End-of-life planning and platform recommendations
Skills, Knowledge & Experience:
- The candidate must have a currently active NATO SECRET security clearance
- 5+ years hands-on experience in at least one of the above database technologies (MySQL or PostgreSQL) and 2+ years of experience in the second database technology (MySQL or PostgreSQL)
- MySQL: Strong knowledge of MySQL architecture, storage engines (InnoDB); Hands-on experience with backup tools like mysqldump, MySQL shell, Percona, XtraBackup
- PostgreSQL: Deep understanding of PostgreSQL internals; Experience managing large datasets, storage growth, autovacuum and index maintenance; Experience with WAL and archiving; Experience managing PostgreSQL extensions
- Experience with SQL optimization, indexing, and query execution plans.
- Strong Linux administration skills (system resources, I/O, file systems, network basics) relevant to database performance.
- Knowledge of security best practices (TLS, privilege management, audit/logging, secure configuration).
- Automation mindset: experienced with scripting (Bash/ Python /Perl).
