Senior Database Administrator

Job Description

U. S. Steel is seeking a Senior Database Administrator to own the availability, performance, security, and lifecycle of the enterprise database estate supporting our most business-critical manufacturing, financial, and enterprise applications. This is a platform-agnostic senior technical role: the estate spans commercial and open-source relational platforms as well as cloud database services, and the successful candidate is expected to bring deep expertise in at least one enterprise platform and the judgment to operate, learn, and standardize across the rest. The role sets database standards, engineers high-availability and disaster recovery capability, leads upgrades and migrations, tunes workloads that run 24x7 alongside plant operations, and mentors a broader infrastructure team. The position partners closely with application, infrastructure, security, and vendor teams, and participates in an on-call rotation supporting continuous mill and plant operations.

Key Responsibilities
Database Architecture & Design
• Define and maintain database reference architectures, platform standards, and design patterns for transactional, reporting, and analytical workloads.
• Lead logical and physical data modeling, including schema design, normalization, partitioning, and indexing strategy for new and re-platformed applications.
• Select the appropriate database engine and hosting model for each workload, balancing performance, cost, licensing, resiliency, and long-term supportability.
• Design for scale and resilience, including capacity sizing, growth and archiving strategy, and data retention and purge standards agreed with application and compliance owners.
• Review application and vendor designs at the data tier and provide architecture guidance to development teams before build begins.
• Partner with enterprise architecture, security, and integration teams on data movement, replication, and interface design.
• Own the database platform roadmap covering version currency, end-of-life remediation, and modernization, and present recommendations to IT leadership.
Database Administration & Operations
• Administer, monitor, and maintain production, test, and development databases across on-premises data centers and cloud environments.
High Availability, Backup & Recovery
• Design, implement, and operate replication and standby configurations, and prove them through scheduled switchover and failover testing.

Cloud & Platform Modernization
• Plan and execute database migrations to Azure and other cloud platforms, including assessment, sizing, licensing, and cutover planning.
Managed Service Provider Oversight
• Work with the managed service provider daily on database operations, setting priorities, clarifying requirements, and confirming that delivered work meets U. S. Steel standards.

Required Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 10+ years of hands-on database administration experience in enterprise production environments.
• Deep, demonstrable expertise in at least one enterprise relational platform (for example Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or MySQL) and working production experience with a second.
• Demonstrated experience with logical and physical data modeling, schema design, partitioning, and indexing strategy for transactional and reporting workloads.
• Experience defining database reference architectures and standards and reviewing application and vendor designs at the data tier.
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating high availability and disaster recovery configurations such as clustering, replication, standby databases, or availability groups.
• Expert-level backup and recovery skills, including proven recovery of production databases under time pressure.
• Strong performance tuning capability, including execution plan analysis, indexing strategy, and workload diagnosis using native platform tooling.
• Proficiency in SQL and at least one scripting or automation language such as PowerShell, Bash, or Python.
• Working knowledge of Windows Server and Linux administration as it supports the database tier.
• Experience running database workloads on virtualized or cloud infrastructure, including Azure database services.
• Experience with database security and compliance controls, including access management, encryption, and audit evidence.
• Experience working in an ITIL-based service management environment with SMAX or an equivalent ITSM platform.
• Experience working with a managed service provider or offshore support partner, including directing task execution, reviewing quality, and holding the partner to service levels.
• Demonstrated ability to lead incidents under pressure and communicate clearly with technical and business stakeholders.
• Willingness to participate in an on-call rotation and support planned maintenance outside business hours.
Preferred Qualifications
• Experience administering three or more database platforms in a single estate, including open-source engines.
• Experience with engineered systems or managed database services such as Exadata, Azure SQL Managed Instance, or Amazon RDS.
• Experience with data replication and integration tooling such as GoldenGate, Always On, or change data capture.
• Experience supporting manufacturing, industrial, or OT-adjacent environments where database downtime affects production.
• Experience with data warehouse, data lake, or analytics platform architecture alongside transactional database design.

Company Overview

Since 1901, U. S. Steel has been a recognized leader in steel production. Today, as the first North American steel company to have declared a 2050 net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goal, we remain as innovative as ever, leading transformation across our industry while continuing to make products for everyday life - from industries as far ranging as automotive, construction, containers and packaging, appliances, and energy.

Underneath it all is our Culture of Caring, which shows up in our community partnerships, charitable contributions, company-sponsored employee volunteer initiatives, scholarship programs, leadership training, and much more. And of course, it takes shape in a steadfast commitment to safety first in our workplaces and respect for our employees, who are United by Steel.

We are honored to have earned accolades and awards from well-regarded organizations, including the following:

• Ethisphere's World's Most Ethical Companies® 2022, '23, '24
• Disability: IN's Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion 2021, '22, '23, '24
• Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Equality 100 Award 2020, '21, '22, '23-24, '25
• Military Times' Best for Vets: Employers 2023, '24

Conducting business with integrity and with the highest ethical values has underpinned U. S. Steel's success for over 100 years, and it remains critical to our company's success in the future. U. S. Steel is an Equal Opportunity Employer. It is our policy to provide equal employment opportunity (EEO) according to job qualifications without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, genetics, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, disability status or status as a protected Veteran or any other legally protected group status. (California residents may visit regarding collection of personal information and U. S. Steel's privacy practices.)

Competency Summary

At U. S. Steel all employees are expected to display the following core competencies every day to advance corporate, team and individual goals:

Think: Think Critically and Drive Change
Lead: Develop Talent and Collaborate
Do: Empower Performance and Deliver Results