University of Washington

As a UW employee, you have a unique opportunity to change lives on our campuses, in our state and around the world. UW employees offer their boundless energy, creative problem-solving skills, and dedication to build stronger minds and a healthier world.

UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits, and natural beauty.

The University of Washington is one of the world’s preeminent public universities in impact and funding. Since 1972, the UW has continued to receive more externally sponsored research funding than any other U.S. public university and is one of the few universities in the U.S. with total research funding nearing two billion. That funding drives crucial, ground-breaking research that transforms lives around the globe.

In the Office of Research at UW, we take pride in creating an outstanding climate of support for UW researchers that helps them compete and succeed. However, the complexity of research administration and regulation grows each day. Our mission in ORIS (Office of Research Information Services) is to reduce that administrative burden by streamlining and automating information services so researchers can spend more time researching.

We in ORIS have an outstanding opportunity open for a Temporary Data Engineer/DBA (Database Administrator)

The Data Engineer/DBA (Database Administrator) will be responsible for ensuring the stability, performance, and security of the databases and data that support ORIS systems. ORIS’s data infrastructure supports systems and services used by award-winning faculty and staff to perform administrative activities including submission of funding applications for consideration, routing them electronically for approval, managing detailed multi-year grant budgets, integrating with other UW systems, and providing reporting capabilities to academic and administrative users. This will reduce the administrative burden on researchers across the University by improving the amount of time researchers can spend on researching; improving University compliance; and ensuring that the University can continue to be at the forefront of academic research.

The Data Engineer/DBA position is charged with ensuring that database resources meet security, performance, reliability, and availability requirements. The Data Engineer/DBA will partner with development teams across multiple products and will need to work with different database systems and hosting platforms. The DBA will provide consultation and assistance in database and data design and will be responsible for provisioning, optimization, operations, and business continuity. The Data Engineer/DBA will work to ensure secure and dependable database performance and operations through implementation, test, integration test, and migration and production deployment and cutover phases. Operations consist of supporting a range of data software components, infrastructure, integrations, and services, some of which target 24/7/365 availability.

Successful candidates must have a solid background in design and implementation of databases and other data infrastructure that support online applications, reporting and analytics, and integrations with other systems.

The Data Engineer/DBA supports databases across platforms and products, both in the cloud and on-premises. The Data Engineer/DBA must provide support through all phases of development as well as production support. A successful person in this position must …

• Collaborate and consult with multiple teams of diverse staff including junior and senior engineering staff as well as technical leads, product owners, and project managers across multiple products.
• Align data and database configuration, maintenance, and operations with overall ORIS IT operational goals and business objectives as outlined by ORIS program portfolio that supports UW’s $1.89 billion research enterprise.
• Lead, plan, and advise on the strategic and tactical direction of all facets of data and database administration across multiple products, from meeting minimum security requirements to ensuring stability, performance, and availability requirements are met.

This position advances the Office of Research’s mission to support the integration of electronic research information systems both as a data engineer, ensuring the optimized and performance applications with the data layer and, as an administrator, ensuring the security and reliability of ORIS’s core database operations. This will reduce the administrative burden on researchers across the University by improving the amount of time researchers can spend on researching; improving University compliance; and ensuring that the University can continue to be at the forefront of academic research.

Responsibilities:

Operations and Administration – 60%

• Design, deploy, configure, maintain, and deprecate database environments, databases, data schema, and data elements to support novel applications development and support
• Develop and assist with SQL query design for applications and reporting to meet organizational needs and ORIS commitments
• Recommend, design, implement, and maintain automation to reduce repetitive software development and maintenance tasks and increase application performance
• Maintain configuration and management of databases across Non-Prod and Prod environments to ensure optimal uptime and performance for ORIS products and services
• Engage and participate in ORIS’ culture of review both as reviewer and reviewee to ensure shared knowledge of development practices and high-quality code
• Implement and maintain regular database backup and retention plans to ensure that database archiving and disposition requirements are met
• Determine, implement, and maintain performance monitoring and tuning strategies to ensure that databases operate within security, reliability, and availability requirements
• Configure logging and monitoring to ensure reliable and accurate reporting on database and application health and performance
• Participate in software release (possibly including off hours release and update times)
• Plan and carry out any needed data migrations and system upgrades and updates
• Monitor ETLs and other regular or scheduled database processes and take appropriate steps when failures occur
• Research and respond to alerts and notifications of real or potential issues to proactively communicate and address problems
• Research data and database issues as they pertain to production support and non-production support requests, including application SQL queries
• Ensure business continuity and disaster recovery for ORIS databases
• Troubleshoot and resolve application and data infrastructure incidents

Technical Planning, Consultation, and Collaboration – 25%

• Partner with development teams to ensure data and database components and mechanisms meet all functional and non-functional requirements, including data modeling, data schema design, database design, query development and optimization, and similar tasks
• Participate in UW technology integration initiatives that involve ORIS supported systems
• Participate in organizational risk assessment activities, security planning, and vendor analysis to ensure solutions meet data and data infrastructure standards
• Build strong relationships, working with diverse technical and business partner groups, both internal and external to the University of Washington
• Effectively communicate and collaborate technical information with a wide range of people with varying levels of technical expertise

Administrative Duties – 10%

• Attend recurring organization meetings and one-on-ones with a supervisor.
• Engage in unplanned communications
• Participate in recurring HR processes

Professional and Organizational Development – 5%

• Maintain an awareness of industry, institutional, and organizational trends, best practices, and standard solutions
• Socialize key concepts, industry best practices, and organizational principles, strategies, and conventions related to data and database administration to both technical and non-technical staff via mentoring, meetings, hands-on learning, and documentation
• Become familiar with research administration in an R1 university setting in order to streamline its supporting business processes

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Math/Statistics, Business Administration, or equivalent experience.
• 6 Years of experience in data engineering and database administration to include at least the following minimum professional experience:

o 6 years hands-on experience as an individual contributor on database implementation, maintenance, and operation in accordance with industry standards, data policies, and security best practices using SQL:

• Data and data infrastructure implementation and optimization for application development and maintenance
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Indexing strategies
• DB performance and monitoring tools (such as SolarWinds, Datadog, RDS Performance Insights, and/or Redgate)
• Query profiling and optimization tools
• ETL tools (such as SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), AWS Glue, Informatica, or Alteryx )
• Modeling tools (such as erwin or DbSchema)
• Secure data management practices

o 2 years’ experience configuring and managing databases in the AWS cloud environment including: RDS, EC2.

• Demonstrated ability to communicate clearly and effectively in both oral and written mediums with individuals and groups in order to socialize information and knowledge with a diverse group of colleagues
• Demonstrated ease in technical and non-technical review as both reviewer and reviewee in order to facilitate collaborative group activities such as change control and pull request review

Desirable Qualifications:

Experience with ...

• AWS Services such as Glue, DMS, Quicksight, Redshift, data pipeline.
• Performing security audits and reviews of databases and data systems.
• REST API development and management platforms, such as MuleSoft or Boomi (Mulesoft preferred).
• Open-source database technologies: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Oracle, etc.
• Information Security standards and frameworks.
• Working in a Scrum-Agile environment.
• Workday suite of applications/modules.
• Workday data model, security, integrations, and data load capabilities.

Working Conditions:

This position:

• Contributes in a collaborative teamwork environment.
• Collaborates across diverse backgrounds, personalities, and disciplines in a shared space working environment through scheduled and ad hoc meetings focused on problem solving.
• May be required to work in a hybrid environment, using remote and on-site workplaces.
• While normally has a Monday-Friday day shift, will occasionally have responsibilities or emergent situations where work outside of standard business hours is required to ensure software deployments go smoothly, to respond to incidents, and/or to meet critical deadlines.
• May be required to be on call.
• Is an essential position and is required to report to work when needed when UW suspends operations.

Application Process:

The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process. These assessments may include Work Authorization, Cover Letter, and/or others. Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.

Committed to attracting and retaining a diverse staff, the University of Washington will honor your experiences, perspectives and unique identity. Together, our community strives to create and maintain working and learning environments that are inclusive, equitable and welcoming.

The University of Washington is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, age, protected veteran or disabled status, or genetic information.

To request disability accommodation in the application process, contact the Disability Services Office at 206-543-6450 or dso@uw.edu.

Applicants considered for this position will be required to disclose if they are the subject of any substantiated findings or current investigations related to sexual misconduct at their current employment and past employment. Disclosure is required under Washington state law.

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