Oracle DBA

Oracle Database Administrator / Cloud Migration Specialist

We are seeking an experienced Oracle Database Administrator / Cloud Migration Specialist to support the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Cloud Operations and Migration Services program. This is a remote, hands-on technical role supporting the operation, maintenance, optimisation, and migration of enterprise applications and databases within the VA Enterprise Cloud environment.

The successful candidate combines deep production Oracle DBA capability with practical Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) experience. They will contribute to database design, implementation, administration, performance tuning, data replication, migration planning, production cutovers, operational tooling, technical documentation, and cross-functional problem solving.

This is not a general cloud DBA position. Candidates must be able to demonstrate direct experience managing Oracle databases in production, leading or materially contributing to database migrations, and using OCI services or operational tools to meet performance, availability, security, compliance, and service-level objectives.

Core Responsibilities

• Administer, maintain, monitor, troubleshoot, patch, optimise, and support production Oracle databases, including Oracle 12c, 19c, or later.
• Design and implement database administration procedures, maintenance standards, incident response processes, and performance-management practices.
• Lead or support database migration planning, migration runbook development, technical validation, cutover rehearsals, production cutovers, rollback planning, and post-migration stabilisation.
• Perform database replication, performance tuning, availability, recovery, and operational-readiness activities.
• Use Oracle migration technologies such as Oracle Zero Downtime Migration (ZDM) and related database replication, recovery, and cutover approaches.
• Support application, infrastructure, platform, security, and system-administration teams operating VA applications in a cloud environment.
• Apply OCI operational tooling across monitoring, logging, database management, observability, identity, security, networking, storage, and disaster-recovery domains.
• Analyse complex performance, reliability, availability, security, or operational issues and recommend solutions applicable across multiple teams.
• Create clear technical documentation, including migration runbooks, standard operating procedures, cutover plans, knowledge articles, and operational guides.
• Communicate complex technical decisions, risks, dependencies, and incident status effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Work within policy-driven and regulated environments, with close attention to security, operational standards, compliance, and service-level requirements.

Required Qualifications

• 6+ years of hands-on experience as an Oracle Database Administrator supporting Oracle 12c, Oracle 19c, or more recent versions in production environments.
• Demonstrated Oracle database administration expertise, including installation, configuration, maintenance, performance management, troubleshooting, backup/recovery, and day-to-day operational support.
• Strong database-performance tuning experience, including diagnosis and remediation of performance issues affecting production applications.
• Direct experience with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) services, components, resources, and operational tools.
• Direct migration experience involving Oracle databases, including migration discovery, planning, validation, runbook authoring, cutover planning, rollback strategy, replication, and post-cutover support.
• Hands-on experience with Oracle Zero Downtime Migration (ZDM), data replication, performance tuning, and database cutover activities.
• Experience with cross-platform database migrations, hybrid architectures, or cloud database services across OCI, AWS, Azure, or similar environments.
• Experience with at least one OCI operational-tool category: cloud security, monitoring/logging, database management, networking, storage, disaster recovery, governance, or resource management.
• Proven ability to work independently as an SME while collaborating with application teams, cloud engineers, system administrators, security teams, project teams, and client stakeholders.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a technical discipline; substantial additional relevant experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident who has lived in the United States for at least three years.
• Able to pass a clean criminal background check and obtain a High-Risk Public Trust position. Candidates unable to meet these eligibility requirements cannot be considered.

Priority OCI Expertise

Candidates do not need every item below, but must show credible hands-on exposure to one or more operational-tool areas.

• Database, monitoring, and observability: OCI Database Management, Fleet Application Management, Logging, Log Analytics, Monitoring, Stack Monitoring, Ops Insights, Notifications, Connector Hub, OS Management Hub, Resource Manager, Full Stack Disaster Recovery.
• Security and identity: OCI IAM, Cloud Guard, Access Governance, Key Management, Certificates, Security Zones, Vulnerability Scanning, Network Firewall, Bastion, Autonomous Linux.
• Networking: Virtual Cloud Networks, FastConnect, private endpoints, site-to-site VPN, DNS, load balancers, networking gateways.
• Storage: Block Volumes, Object Storage, File Storage, Archive Storage, Storage Gateway.
• Enterprise tools: Ansible, GitHub, Jira, ServiceNow, Splunk, Dynatrace, SolarWinds, Tenable Nessus, BigFix, Netskope, Turbot, Red Hat OpenShift, Cloudability, Apptio.

Preferred Qualifications

• Active High-Risk Public Trust clearance or recent successful Public Trust eligibility.
• OCI certification at Associate, Professional, or Specialist level, or a recently passed OCI exam.
• VA, federal civilian, defence, healthcare, or similarly regulated-environment experience.
• Familiarity with FedRAMP, HIPAA, PCI, NIST 800-53, CIS benchmarks, vulnerability management, and cloud compliance controls.
• Experience supporting OS-level remediation activities following vulnerability scans.
• Automation and configuration-management experience with Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform/HashiCorp Configuration Language, Python, JSON, Shell, or similar tooling.
• Experience across additional cloud platforms, particularly AWS, Azure, or GCP, and their operational-tool equivalents.
• ITIL certification or demonstrable ITIL service-management knowledge.
• Strong technical-writing experience producing runbooks, SOPs, operational documentation, and how-to guides.

Ideal Candidate Profile

A high-quality candidate will typically be a Senior Oracle DBA, Oracle Cloud DBA, OCI Database Engineer, Oracle Migration Engineer, Database Migration Specialist, or Cloud Operations Engineer who has worked in enterprise or government-scale environments.

They should be able to describe a real migration in detail: source environment, target OCI architecture, chosen migration method, data volume, downtime tolerance, replication approach, testing, cutover execution, rollback plan, stakeholder coordination, performance validation, and post-migration support. Strong candidates will not simply list ZDM or OCI on a résumé; they will articulate why a specific method was selected and how production risk was controlled.

Must-Have Screening Gates

Use these Loxo filters or knockout criteria before outreach:

1. Oracle DBA experience: 6+ years with Oracle 12c, 19c, or later.
2. OCI experience: Explicit Oracle Cloud Infrastructure experience—not merely "cloud" or Oracle applications.
3. Migration experience: Concrete evidence of database migration, cross-platform migration, OCI migration, migration runbooks, cutover planning, ZDM, replication, or data migration.
4. Production operations: Database administration plus performance tuning, recovery, availability, or operational support.
5. OCI operational tooling: At least one identifiable service across OCI monitoring/logging, security, IAM, networking, storage, database management, disaster recovery, or governance.
6. Eligibility: U.S. citizen or permanent resident with three or more years living in the U.S.; eligible for High-Risk Public Trust.
7. Location: U.S.-based and able to work remotely on a U.S. government program.

Do Not Prioritise

• Oracle functional consultants, Oracle ERP specialists, Oracle EBS administrators, PL/SQL-only developers, or Oracle Fusion consultants without production DBA and database-migration experience.
• Generic cloud engineers who have AWS/Azure experience but no demonstrable Oracle DBA foundation or OCI exposure.
• Database administrators whose experience is entirely on-