Database Architect — Oracle & PostgreSQL, Cloud Migration

OpsGuru is a global engineering and consulting group. We are experts in the container ecosystem, data processing and analytics, and cloud-native technologies. Our team is formed by network, data, security, DevOps specialists and application developers. OpsGuru empowers customers with technology to solve their business problems and provide the tools to assure success in their digital transformation.
About the role

We're looking for a Database Architect who owns the data tier end to end on enterprise cloud engagements — and who is equally deep in Oracle and PostgreSQL, because the work sits squarely between them.

Most of our engagements start with a working-but-aging system: an Oracle database carrying a decade of business logic in PL/SQL packages nobody has read recently, supporting applications that cannot go down. They end with a supportable, well-instrumented PostgreSQL platform on cloud infrastructure that costs less to run and that a managed operations team can actually keep healthy. Between those two points sit the decisions that determine whether the program succeeds: target-state design, sequencing, what gets converted versus rewritten versus retired, how cutover happens, and what the rollback looks like.

This is the person accountable for those decisions. You will set the technical direction for database migration and modernization work, defend it to client architects and executives, and stay close enough to the implementation to catch the problems early. It is an architecture role that has not stopped being hands-on — you are expected to open a plan, read a trace, and prove the point yourself rather than delegate the diagnosis.

You will also help shape how we deliver this work: reference architectures, migration patterns, estimation models, and standards that make the next engagement faster than the last one.
What you'll do

- Own the architecture of the data tier across migration and modernization programs — current-state assessment, target-state design, migration strategy, sequencing, risk, and effort — and be accountable for the outcome, not just the design document.

- Make and defend the hard calls: convert versus rewrite versus retire, RDS versus Aurora versus self-managed, single cutover versus phased coexistence, where to spend money on performance and where not to.

- Design Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migrations in full: schema conversion, PL/SQL to PL/pgSQL strategy, data type and collation mismatch resolution, query rewrite patterns, and the performance validation that proves the target holds under real load.

- Plan cutovers that minimize downtime — CDC-based replication, dual-run and output-comparison approaches, rehearsals, go/no-go criteria, and a rollback plan you would genuinely be willing to execute.

- Stay hands-on where it counts: diagnose performance problems yourself, read execution plans, isolate whether the bottleneck is SQL, schema, statistics, configuration, storage, or application access pattern, and land the fix with evidence behind it.

- Architect the database platform on cloud infrastructure — sizing, HA and failover topology, backup and recovery, patching and version strategy, encryption and key management, observability, and cost optimization.

- Define the operational model handed to managed services: runbooks, monitoring and alerting standards, escalation paths, and the health checks that catch problems before the client does.

- Act as the senior technical voice with clients — lead architecture and design sessions, present to client architects and executive stakeholders, translate trade-offs into business terms, and hold the line when a requested shortcut creates real risk.

- Support pre-sales and delivery planning: scope database workstreams, size effort, contribute to proposals and statements of work, and flag the assumptions that will break the estimate if they turn out to be wrong.

- Build reusable assets — reference architectures, migration playbooks, conversion patterns, a