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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Oracle DBA

💰 $90,000 - $160,000

ITDatabase AdministrationOracleInfrastructure

🎯 Role Definition

The Oracle Database Administrator (Oracle DBA) is responsible for the administration, performance, security, availability, and lifecycle management of Oracle Database environments across on-premises and cloud platforms. This role combines technical depth in Oracle Database technologies (RAC, ASM, Data Guard, RMAN, OEM), practical experience with automation and scripting, and collaboration with development, infrastructure, and security teams to ensure business-critical data services are reliable, performant, and compliant. The Oracle DBA will lead database upgrades and migrations, tune SQL and instance-level performance, design backup and recovery strategies, and implement security controls while contributing to capacity planning and cost optimization efforts.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior DBA / Database Support Engineer
  • Systems Administrator with database exposure
  • Application Developer (PL/SQL, SQL-heavy roles)

Advancement To:

  • Senior Oracle DBA / Lead DBA
  • Database Architect / Data Platform Architect
  • Cloud Database Engineer / Database Migration Lead
  • Infrastructure Engineering Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • DevOps / SRE with database focus
  • Data Engineering (ETL/ELT, data pipelines)
  • Security Engineer (database security & compliance)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, install, configure, and maintain Oracle Database instances (including 11g/12c/18c/19c/21c) across production, staging, and development environments; author and execute upgrade/migration plans with minimal downtime and documented rollback strategies.
  • Lead and execute Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) and Grid Infrastructure deployments and administration, ensuring cluster health, interconnect stability, and node-level tuning for high availability.
  • Architect and operate Data Guard configurations (physical and logical standby) and orchestrate failover/failback testing, role transitions, and automated switchover procedures to meet RTO/RPO objectives.
  • Plan, implement, and validate backup and recovery strategies using RMAN (including incremental backups, multiplexing, backup retention policies) and maintain runbooks for point-in-time recovery and disaster recovery scenarios.
  • Perform advanced performance tuning at the instance, schema, and SQL level: analyze AWR/Statspack reports, tune problematic SQL/PLSQL, adjust optimizer-related parameters, and implement indexing/statistics strategies to reduce query latency and resource usage.
  • Manage ASM disk groups, storage allocation, and integration with SAN/NAS; coordinate with storage and virtualization teams to optimize I/O paths and mitigate contention under peak workloads.
  • Implement and administer Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), Data Redaction, Virtual Private Database (VPD), auditing, and other database security controls to meet internal controls, GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC2 compliance requirements.
  • Build and maintain automation for database lifecycle tasks using shell, Python, Ansible, Terraform, or Jenkins: provisioning, patching, health checks, patch rollback, and configuration drift detection.
  • Design and execute capacity planning, forecasting, and resource optimization for CPU, memory, and storage; produce quarterly capacity reports and recommend infrastructure changes and cost-saving opportunities.
  • Troubleshoot production incidents as part of an on-call rotation: perform root cause analysis, write incident reports, create corrective actions, and communicate status to stakeholders during outages.
  • Administer schema changes, data migrations and large data loads using Oracle Data Pump (expdp/impdp), SQL*Loader, GoldenGate, and custom ETL utilities, coordinating with application owners to ensure zero or minimal disruption.
  • Maintain and tune Oracle Net Services (TNS), listeners, and connection pools; enforce connection limits, timeouts, and secure network routing to ensure application stability.
  • Create, maintain, and optimize database clone, refresh, and sandbox procedures for development and QA environments while ensuring sensitive data masking and anonymization where required.
  • Monitor database health proactively using Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM), Grid Control, Grafana/Prometheus integrations, and custom scripts; define and tune alert thresholds to reduce noise and surface actionable incidents.
  • Administer and maintain PL/SQL code quality standards, provide code reviews for stored procedures and functions, and collaborate with developers on query refactoring and schema design.
  • Coordinate quarterly patching and critical patch updates (CPUs), including testing windows, change management tickets, and risk mitigation plans across both DB and OS layers.
  • Manage Oracle licensing and compliance activities, track deployed database features, and provide licensing cost analyses and renewal recommendations to procurement and finance teams.
  • Implement and verify database change management processes: schema migration automation, version control for DDL, migration testing, and post-deployment validation.
  • Integrate Oracle databases with cloud services (OCI, AWS RDS/Aurora, Azure DB), design migration strategies (lift-and-shift, re-platform), and run hybrid architectures that bridge on-prem and cloud databases.
  • Design and test disaster recovery (DR) plans, conduct scheduled DR drills, evaluate RPO/RTO attainment, and refine failover procedures with infrastructure and network teams.
  • Build and maintain comprehensive documentation, runbooks, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all DBA activities, ensuring knowledge transfer and on-call readiness.
  • Manage database-related security incidents and vulnerabilities, coordinate patching or configuration changes, and collaborate with the security team on threat modeling, pen test remediation, and audit remediation.
  • Implement replication and data distribution solutions (Oracle GoldenGate, Streams) for zero-downtime migration, near real-time reporting, and active-active or active-passive architectures.
  • Evaluate and onboard third-party database tooling and SaaS products (performance diagnostics, monitoring, backup-as-a-service), perform POCs, and recommend tools that reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR).
  • Mentor and train junior DBAs, provide technical leadership during major projects, review architecture decisions, and foster best practices for database engineering and operations.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Provide subject matter expertise to application teams during onboarding, deployments, and schema refactors.
  • Create automation playbooks for routine DBA tasks and maintain CI/CD integrations for database migrations.
  • Work with backup vendors and cloud providers to validate restore procedures and optimize retention to balance cost and recovery objectives.
  • Participate in cross-functional architecture reviews, capacity planning meetings, and security risk assessments.
  • Assist in procurement evaluations, vendor SLA reviews, and cost optimization for database infrastructure.
  • Deliver training sessions, technical workshops, and brown-bag presentations to improve organizational knowledge of Oracle database best practices.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Oracle Database Administration (11g/12c/18c/19c/21c) — installation, configuration, patching, upgrade and lifecycle management.
  • Oracle RAC, Grid Infrastructure, and ASM administration for clustering and storage management.
  • Oracle Data Guard (physical/logical standby) design, implementation, and failover/failback procedures.
  • RMAN backup and recovery, recovery catalog management, incremental backups, and disaster recovery validation.
  • Performance tuning: AWR, ASH, Statspack analysis, SQL tuning, optimizer statistics, and execution plan analysis.
  • PL/SQL troubleshooting, code optimization, debugging, and best-practices implementation.
  • Database networking: TNS, listener configuration, load balancing, and connection pooling.
  • Automation & scripting: Shell (Bash), Python, Ansible, Terraform, and CI/CD integration for database deployments.
  • Cloud database technologies and migrations: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), AWS RDS/Aurora, Azure Database, and hybrid cloud designs.
  • Data replication and migration tooling: Oracle GoldenGate, Data Pump (expdp/impdp), SQL*Loader.
  • Monitoring and observability tools: Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM), Prometheus/Grafana, Datadog, Splunk.
  • Security & compliance: TDE, VPD, auditing, RBAC, encryption, and vulnerability remediation for databases.
  • Storage and OS-level coordination: SAN/NAS, LVM, Linux administration (RHEL, Oracle Linux).
  • Troubleshooting production incidents, on-call support, and incident post-mortem analysis.
  • SQL diagnostics and index management, statistics gathering, partitioning strategies, and schema design advisement.

Soft Skills

  • Strong verbal and written communication for clear incident reporting, runbook documentation, and cross-team collaboration.
  • Analytical mindset with a focus on root-cause analysis and continuous improvement.
  • Customer-service orientation: ability to translate technical constraints into business impact and communicate RTO/RPO trade-offs.
  • Project management skills: prioritization, change coordination, and delivering under maintenance windows.
  • Mentoring and leadership: coach junior DBAs and champion best practices across teams.
  • Adaptability and learning agility to stay current with Oracle releases, cloud capabilities, and industry best practices.
  • Collaboration and stakeholder management: work effectively with developers, infrastructure, security, and product teams.
  • Attention to detail for configuration management, patch testing, and compliance documentation.
  • Time management and ability to manage multiple concurrent projects and incidents with competing priorities.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent.
  • Professional certifications such as Oracle Certified Professional (OCP), Oracle Certified Master (OCM), or cloud certifications (OCI Architect, AWS/Azure Database Specialty).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Systems
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology
  • Data Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–8 years of hands-on Oracle DBA experience for mid-level roles; 8+ years for senior/lead roles.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years working with production Oracle RAC, Data Guard, and RMAN.
  • Demonstrated experience with cloud migrations (OCI, AWS, Azure) and hybrid database architectures.
  • Proven track record of performance tuning, disaster recovery planning, and incident management in enterprise environments.
  • Experience implementing database security and compliance controls (TDE, auditing, role-based access).
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