Monitor cluster health and alerts (CloudWatch / Performance Insights / slow-query), investigate anomalies and act on incidents.
Diagnose and optimise slow queries and problematic transactions: use EXPLAIN, rewrite queries, and add/remove indexes as needed.
Ensure backups, snapshots and PITR are configured and tested; maintain and exercise recovery/runbook procedures.
Perform capacity planning, sizing and maintenance (patches, minor version upgrades, failover drills) to keep performance and availability targets.
Automate routine checks and reports (index coverage, long-running queries, replica lag, space usage) and produce actionable recommendations for engineering teams.

Strong practical experience with MySQL / Aurora MySQL administration at production scale (schema design, replication, failover).
Proven ability to profile and tune queries and indexes (EXPLAIN, slow-query analysis, query rewriting).
Solid knowledge of backup & recovery strategies for Aurora (snapshots, continuous backups/PITR) and tested restore experience.
Experience with monitoring and alerting for databases (CloudWatch, Performance Insights, slow-query logs) and acting on alarms.
Comfortable scripting/automation (Bash, Python, or similar) to build health checks, runbooks and operational tooling; good Linux fundamentals.
A role model for our values: Make it happen Succeed together Be the customer Go beyond.
Familiarity with MySQL tooling such as pt-query-digest / Percona Toolkit, ProxySQL, or similar performance/management tools (Desirable).
AWS experience or certification (Aurora/RDS internals, KMS for encryption, IAM, multi-AZ/Global DB setups) (Desirable).

25 days holiday per year + your birthday off
Opportunities for progression, development and learning new skills
£250 towards the cost of learning & development
Free onsite Nuffield Health gym & pool (London) and discounted gym membership elsewhere
GetActive with Aviva
Health and Wellbeing discounts on services and products
Interbank currency rates on travel money and international transfers.
Bupa Private Healthcare
Free Eye Test and £50 up to the cost of glasses
EAP Service
Mental Health Services
Life Assurance Policy
x3 annual salary
Contributory pension scheme
Cycle to Work Scheme
Season Ticket Loans
Enhanced Parental Policies
Complimentary tea, coffee, soft drinks and fruit

Senior Database Administrator

Key skills