Principal Database Engineer - Oracle Exadata
Citizens Financial Group · United States · $122,000–$180,000 (stated in the posting)
Principal Database Engineer, Oracle Exadata, Multi Database and AI Ready Data Platforms
Locations & Work Arrangement: Remote is not an option, candidates must be willing to commute to one of the following hub locations with a hybrid schedule of 4 days onsite and 1 day remote per week with flexibility in one of the following hubs:
- Phoenix, AZ
- Johnston, RI
- Boston, MA
- Iselin, NJ
- Plano or Irving TX
Position Summary
We are seeking a highly skilled and forward looking Principal Database Engineer with deep ownership of Oracle Exadata engineered systems, enterprise Oracle database platforms, and modern cloud native databases. This role is the senior technical and platform authority responsible for architecture, engineering standards, financial stewardship, and long term evolution of the enterprise database ecosystem across Exadata based on premise platforms, hybrid models, and public cloud environments.
The ideal candidate combines hands on Oracle and Exadata expertise, strong commercial and cost management awareness, and a strategic mindset for enabling analytics, machine learning, and Generative AI at enterprise scale.
Key Responsibilities
Oracle Exadata Platform Ownership and Engineered Systems Leadership
- Serve as the primary technical owner and architect for Oracle Exadata environments across database, compute, storage, and networking
- Define Exadata platform strategy, operating models, consolidation approaches, workload placement, and growth planning
- Lead performance engineering using Smart Scan, Hybrid Columnar Compression, ASM, RAC, IORM, and resource management
- Own capacity planning, utilization optimization, and expansion strategies balancing performance, availability, and cost
- Design and govern high availability and disaster recovery architectures using RAC, Data Guard, and Maximum Availability Architecture patterns
- Establish monitoring, diagnostics, and observability standards for proactive platform health management
- Partner with infrastructure teams on lifecycle management including patching, firmware alignment, upgrades, expansion, and decommissioning
Oracle Licensing, Cost Optimization, and Commercial Governance
- Act as the technical authority for Oracle licensing strategy aligned to architecture and deployment decisions
- Optimize licensing and support costs through processor and core analysis, feature usage governance, and environment right sizing
- Partner with finance, procurement, and legal on contract negotiations, renewals, audits, and true up activities
- Establish engineering guardrails to prevent licensing risk and cost leakage across on premise and cloud environments
- Evaluate deployment alternatives including Exadata Cloud at Customer and hybrid models with detailed cost benefit analysis
- Provide executive level insight into total cost of ownership, performance tradeoffs, and long term platform sustainability
Database Architecture, Engineering, and Operations
- Serve as enterprise technical authority for Oracle and multi database platforms
- Administer and optimize Oracle databases including tuning, backup, recovery, security, and lifecycle management
- Provide expert guidance for MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and other relational and NoSQL platforms
- Design and review complex SQL, schemas, and access patterns supporting mission critical applications and analytics
- Define resiliency, scaling, and data protection architectures aligned to business RTO and RPO requirements
Cloud and Hybrid Data Platforms
- Architect and support cloud database services primarily on AWS and Azure
- Lead database modernization and hybrid integration between Exadata and cloud platforms
- Establish standards for cloud database performance, cost optimization, security, and reliability
- Partner with cloud, infrastructure, and SRE teams on automation, observability, and reliability engineering
AI, Analytics, and Data Enablement
- Architect databases supporting advanced analytics, machine learning, and Generative AI workloads
- Enable AI ready data performance including high throughput, low latency, and scalable access patterns
- Support data integration, replication, and streaming using Kafka, GoldenGate, and cloud native services
- Collaborate with data engineering teams on model training, inference, and near real time analytics pipelines
Automation, Governance, and Security
- Implement database automation using scripting, DevOps and DataOps practices, and Infrastructure as Code
- Enforce data security, privacy, compliance, encryption, access control, and auditing standards
- Support responsible data and AI governance including data quality, lineage, and controlled access
- Act as senior escalation point for incidents, driving root cause analysis and long term improvements
Technical Leadership and Vendor Management
- Provide mentorship and technical leadership to database and platform engineers
- Influence architecture, platform roadmaps, and technology selection decisions
- Serve as primary technical interface with Oracle and strategic vendors
- Evaluate and recommend database technologies, tooling, and vendors aligned to enterprise strategy and financial discipline
Required Qualifications
- 10 or more years of experience as a Database Engineer or DBA with deep Oracle Exadata expertise
- Hands on experience administering and optimizing Oracle databases including RAC, ASM, and Data Guard
- Strong understanding of Oracle licensing models, cost drivers, and deployment implications
- Experience supporting MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB in enterprise environments
- Advanced SQL, query optimization, and database internals expertise
- Experience with AWS database services and hybrid integration patterns
- Experience with data replication and streaming using Kafka and GoldenGate
- Strong analytical, documentation, and stakeholder communication skills
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with Exadata Cloud at Customer or hybrid engineered system architectures
- Demonstrated success reducing Oracle licensing and platform costs
- Familiarity with analytics, machine learning, or AI data platforms
- Experience with DevOps, DataOps, automation, and Infrastructure as Code
- AWS certifications including Database Specialty or Solutions Architect
- Experience working in regulated industries
Why This Role
This is a hands on Principal level role with full ownership of Oracle Exadata platforms including architecture, operational excellence, licensing governance, and vendor strategy. The role directly influences how the enterprise balances performance, cost, risk, and innovation while enabling analytics and AI at scale.
Pay Transparency
The salary range for this position is $122,000-180,000 per year, plus an opportunity to earn an annual discretionary bonus. Actual pay is based on various factors including but not limited to the work location, and relevant skills and experience.
We offer competitive pay, comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, maternity/paternity leave, flexible work arrangements, education reimbursement, wellness programs and more. Note, Citizens’ paid time off policy exceeds the mandatory, paid sick or paid time-away policy of very local and state jurisdiction in the United States. For an overview of our benefits, visit https://jobs.citizensbank.com/benefits.
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Equal Employment Opportunity
Citizens, its parent, subsidiaries, and related companies (Citizens) provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all colleagues and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, citizenship, physical or mental disability, perceived disability or history or record of a disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, genetic characteristic, marital or domestic partner status, victim of domestic violence, family status/parenthood, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, colleague’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state and/or local laws. At Citizens, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that enables all colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day and everyone is expected to be treated with respect and professionalism. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, performance and capability.
Equal Employment and Opportunity Employer
Background Check
Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the candidate successfully passing a background check, which may include initial credit, motor vehicle record, public record, prior employment verification, and criminal background checks. Results of the background check are individually reviewed based upon legal requirements imposed by our regulators and with consideration of the nature and gravity of the background history and the job offered. Any offer of employment will include further information.