Principal Oracle Database Engineer – Exadata, RAC, HA/DR & Cloud

Principal Oracle Database Engineer – Exadata, RAC, HA/DR & Cloud

Position

Principal Oracle Database Engineer / Principal Consultant

Experience

15–20+ years; senior principal-level

Location

Singapore; client-facing / onsite as required

Environment

Business-critical banking, telecom, government or regulated enterprise

Core Expertise

Oracle Database, Exadata, RAC, Data Guard, migrations, tuning, security, production support

Role Overview

We are seeking a highly Experienced Principal Oracle Database Engineer to lead engineering, administration, availability, performance, security, and lifecycle management of complex Oracle database estates. The role requires deep hands-on expertise across Oracle Database and the Exadata stack, RAC, Grid Infrastructure, ASM, Data Guard/Active Data Guard, RMAN, GoldenGate, large-scale upgrades and migrations, and critical production operations. The successful candidate will serve as a technical lead and trusted advisor, resolving high-impact incidents, guiding architecture and recovery strategy, and improving operational efficiency through automation.

Key Responsibilities

Oracle Database & Exadata Engineering

• Own and administer enterprise Oracle database environments including standalone, RAC, multitenant CDB/PDB, and engineered-system landscapes.
• Manage Exadata compute nodes and storage cells; troubleshoot Smart Scan, Flash Cache, Hybrid Columnar Compression, and infrastructure issues.

• Install, configure, patch, upgrade, and maintain Oracle Database, Grid Infrastructure, ASM/ACFS, Exadata, Exadata Cloud@Customer (ExaCC) and Oracle Database Appliance (ODA), as applicable.
• Support Oracle versions such as11g, 12c, 19c and newer releases including 23ai/26ai where deployed.

High Availability, Disaster Recovery & Backup

• Design, implement, and support Oracle RAC and Grid Infrastructure for availability and scalability.
• Implement and administer DataGuard, Active Data Guard and Data Guard Broker; execute planned switchovers and failovers.

• Develop recovery strategies aligned to business RTO/RPO; maintain and validate DR runbooks and conduct DR exercises.
• Design and manage RMANbackup/recovery policies, restore validation and point-in-time recovery procedures.

Upgrades, Migration & Replication

• Lead major-version upgrades, cross-platform migrations, data-centre relocations, consolidation and modernization.
• Plan and execute multi-terabyte migrations with controlled downtime, cutover plans, rollback approaches andpost-migration verification.

• Implement and administer Oracle GoldenGate for replication and migration; troubleshoot lag, source-target mismatches, and replication errors.
• Use appropriate tools such as RMAN, Data Pump and GoldenGate; conduct dependency assessment, sizing, validation and operational handover.

Performance Engineering & Troubleshooting

• Perform end-to-end SQL and database tuning, execution plan analysis, statistics management and investigation of contention, CPU, memory and I/O bottlenecks.
• Use AWR, ADDM, ASH, SQL tracing and Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) for diagnostics and optimization.

• Collaborate with application, infrastructure, and storage teams to resolve complex performance issues and improve critical batch or online workloads.
• Conduct capacity planning, workload analysis, database sizing and performance forecasting.

Critical Production Support & Incident Management

• Provide senior-level support for mission-critical environments, including 24×7 on-call coverage and Severity1 response as required.
• Lead incident recovery, triage,root-cause analysis, problem management and presentation of findings toclient/management stakeholders.

• Operate within ITIL-alignedincident, change, release and operational controls; meet agreed SLAs and change windows.
• Create and maintain SOPs, runbooks, escalation procedures and technical knowledge documentation.

Security, Compliance & Auditing

• Implement Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), wallet/key management, database auditing and secure configuration controls.
• Harden databases against CIS benchmarks and client security standards; coordinate remediation of vulnerabilities and audit findings.

• Configure and support Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall (AVDF), including monitoring, policy configuration, and upgrades.
• Work with risk, security, and compliance teams on access control and regulatory obligations.

Automation, Cloud & Technical Leadership

• Automate DBA, provisioning, monitoring, patching and operational tasks using Python, Ansible, SQL andPL/SQL.
• Support OCI database services, Autonomous Database and ExaCC; AWS/Azure database service fundamentals are beneficial.

• Provide technical leadership and advisory on architecture, migration strategy, capacity, sizing, security, and operational readiness.
• Mentor engineers, review technical deliverables, lead knowledge-transfer sessions and promote engineering standards.

• Evaluate or support Oracle AI Database capabilities, including AI Vector Search, where relevant.

Required Skills & Experience

• Typically 15–20+ years of Oracle Database administration, engineering, consulting or advanced support experience appropriate to a principal role.
• Deep hands-on Oracle Exadata, RAC, Grid Infrastructure, ASM and multitenant CDB/PDB expertise.

• Strong Data Guard/Active DataGuard, Broker, RMAN backup/recovery and RTO/RPO-oriented DR experience.
• Demonstrated delivery oflarge-scale upgrades and migrations, including multi-terabyte andcross-platform workloads.

• Hands-on Oracle GoldenGate implementation and troubleshooting.
• Advanced SQL/PLSQL and performance tuning with AWR, ADDM, ASH, execution plans and OEM.

• Practical security skills in TDE, wallets, auditing, CIS hardening and/or AVDF.
• Critical production support, Severity 1 incident leadership and structured RCA experience.

• Python and/or Ansible automation; Oracle Linux, RHEL or equivalent Unix/Linux administration.
• Strong customer communication, technical documentation, stakeholder advisory and mentoring skills.

Preferred / Advantageous Skills

• OCI, Exadata Cloud@Customer, Autonomous Database or Oracle AI Database exposure.
• OEM Cloud Control administration or upgrade experience.

• Terraform, Docker or Kubernetes exposure.
• Experience with SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB in mixed database environments.

• Relevant Oracle certifications across DBA, RAC/Grid, tuning, migration, OCI or AI Database.
• Experience in banking/capitalmarkets, telecommunications, government or similarly regulated critical environments.

• Resident engineer, principal consultant, technical lead or trusted-advisor engagement experience.

Education & Certifications

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or a related discipline preferred. Relevant postgraduate qualifications and Oracle professional certifications are advantageous. Equivalent depth of enterprise Oracle engineering experience may be considered.

Professional Attributes

• Calm, methodical and decisive during production incidents and critical cutovers.
• Strong ownership, accountability and risk-aware judgement.

• Able to communicate complex technical topics clearly to technical teams, customers and management.
• Collaborative, customer-focusedand capable of leading work across distributed teams.

• Committed to secure operations, knowledge sharing, documentation and continuous improvement.

Candidate Screening Focus

Candidates with demonstrable hands-on Oracle Exadata + RAC + Data Guard/Active Data Guard expertise, large-scale upgrade/migration delivery, advanced performance tuning, database security, and 24×7 critical production support leadership. Profiles focused mainly on routine monitoring or support without engineering, HA/DR, migration, and technical leadership depth may not meet this principal-level requirement.