Why Pythian:

At Pythian, we are experts in strategic database and analytics services, driving digital transformation and operational excellence. Pythian, a multinational company, was founded in 1997 and started by ensuring the reliability and performance of mission-critical databases. We quickly earned a reputation for solving tough data challenges. We were there when the industry moved from on-premises to cloud environments, and as enterprises sought more from their data, we expanded our competencies to include advanced analytics.

Today, we empower organizations to embrace transformation and leverage advanced technologies, including AI, to stay competitive. We deliver innovative solutions that meet each client’s data goals and have built strong partnerships with Google Cloud, AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Snowflake. The powerful combination of our extensive expertise in data and cloud and our ability to keep on top of the latest bleeding edge technologies make us the perfect partner to help mid and large-sized businesses transform to stay ahead in today’s rapidly changing digital economy.

Why you:

The Database Consultant plays a critical role in our CockroachDB consulting practice in the following key areas of responsibility:

• Own the reliability, scalability, latency, and performance of mission-critical CockroachDB infrastructure
• Promote operational efficiency by developing automated systems and tools, significantly reducing operational toil.
• Act as a technical mentor and subject matter expert within the team and consulting partner to customer teams.

If this is you, and you wonder what it would be like to work at Pythian, reach out to us and find out!  

Intrigued to see what a life is like at Pythian? Check out #pythianlife on LinkedIn and follow @loveyourdata on Instagram!

Not the right job for you? Check out what other great jobs Pythian has open around the world! Pythian Careers

What you will be doing:

• Serve as a primary technical consultant, partnering with customer teams for project-based and long-term CockroachDB support.
• Design, document, and implement the new L1/L2 support channel and operational workflow (e.g., ticket triage, escalation paths, SLA adherence) for CockroachDB to accommodate evolving client expectations.
• Act as an escalation point for complex, time-sensitive production support and troubleshooting within distributed database environments.
• Ensure data security, integrity, and quality by adhering to internal standards and industry best practices, covering TLS/certificate management, RBAC, secrets management (KMS/CMEK/encryption), and audit logging.
• Own Backup, Restore, and Disaster Recovery (DR) operations, including scheduled full/incremental backups, point-in-time restore, restore drills, RPO/RTO definition, and failover testing.
• Manage the full CockroachDB Cluster Lifecycle, including node add/remove/decommissioning, rolling upgrades, patch validation, capacity planning, and downgrade/rollback planning (critical operations highlighted by the Booking.com engagement).
• Develop readable, reusable code to streamline provisioning, management, and monitoring of CockroachDB clusters.
• Collaborate with development teams to define and implement relevant observability metrics, with the goal of enhancing application reliability.
• Direct incident response, root cause analysis, and post-mortem processes for critical database outages
• Create and maintain clear documentation, runbooks, and operational guides to reduce business risk and operational costs.
• Define the technical strategy and roadmap for CockroachDB adoption and management across customer engagements.
• Proactively manage technical debt and identify scaling bottlenecks, ensuring infrastructure remains robust for future growth.
• Achieve billable and effective utilization targets of 85%. These targets are subject to modification by Pythian to meet business needs.
• Perform other duties as assigned by your Manager.
• NOTE: This Job Description is subject to modification by Pythian, in its sole discretion, to meet its business needs.

What we need from you:

• 5+ years of experience as a Database Administrator (DBA) or Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
• Advanced experience with CockroachDB and intermediate-level experience with a secondary relational database (e.g., PostgreSQL or MySQL).
• Proven experience migrating legacy databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) to a distributed SQL system like CockroachDB.
• Advanced SQL and Optimization Knowledge: Skilled in query tuning, schema/index design, identifying hotspots, managing transaction contention and retry errors, and using EXPLAIN ANALYZE/table statistics for diagnostics.
• Tool Stack: Terraform, AWS (High skill in networking for multi-region deployment), Vault, Gitlab, and deep production experience with Kubernetes/Helm/Operator (Docker alone is insufficient for production CockroachDB operations).
• Deep scripting and automation skills (Python, Go, and Bash).
• Expertise in analyzing CockroachDB-specific observability metrics, including hands-on experience with Prometheus/Grafana/Alertmanager, Datadog or CloudWatch, DB Console, and SLO/SLI reporting.
• Excellent customer service and consulting focus with proven ability to manage client expectations and priorities.
• Exceptional logical and systematic analysis for systematic problem-solving and root cause analysis.
• A proactive individual with the ability to identify process gaps and enhance improvements across systems and structures.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills for delivering technical and strategic information to diverse audiences.

What you will receive:

• Love your career: Competitive total rewards package. Blog during work hours; take a day off and volunteer for your favorite charity.
• Love your work/life balance: Flexibly work remotely from your home, there’s no daily travel requirement to an office! All you need is a stable internet connection. 
• Love your coworkers: Collaborate with some of the best and brightest in the industry!
• Love your development: Hone your skills or learn new ones with our substantial training allowance; participate in professional development days, attend training, become certified, whatever you like! 
• Love your workspace: We give you all the equipment you need to work from home including a laptop with your choice of OS, and an annual budget to personalize your work environment!  
• Love yourself: Pythian cares about the health and well-being of our team. You will have an annual wellness budget to make yourself a priority (use it on gym memberships, massages, fitness and more). Additionally, you will receive a generous amount of paid vacation and sick days, as well as a day off to volunteer for your favorite charity.

Hiring Disclaimer

• The successful applicant will need to fulfill the requirements necessary to obtain a background check.
• Accommodations are available upon request for candidates taking part in any aspect of the selection process.

AI Disclaimer

Pythian may utilize Enterprise Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools or features throughout its hiring process. These tools help us manage high volumes of applications efficiently and may be employed to review applications, analyze resumes, and assist with other recruitment steps. While Pythian uses AI in its hiring process, it does not substitute for human judgment. Our Talent Acquisition Team reviews all AI-generated recommendations, and the system is subject to regular bias audits to ensure fairness and compliance with all applicable employment and human rights laws. All final hiring decisions are made by, and remain the responsibility of, human decision-makers. By applying for this position, you consent to Pythian’s use of these AI tools in the evaluation of your application. You have the right to request a human review of any solely AI-driven decision or to request an accommodation. Should you require further details regarding the processing of your data, please reach out to us.