Database Engineer

We are looking for an experienced Database Engineer / DBA to support the operation, performance, and continuous improvement of database platforms across Microsoft SQL Server and additional DBMS technologies.The ideal candidate combines hands-on database administration expertise with a strong operational mindset, practical cloud infrastructure experience, and the ability to work independently across database, infrastructure, and SQL layers.
IMPORTANT: THIS ROLE IS AVAILABLE ONLY FOR CANDIDATES BASED IN COSTA RICA.
Key Responsibilities:
Manage and support day-to-day database administration activities across managed and self-managed database environments.Perform SQL performance tuning, including query optimization, execution plan analysis, and indexing strategy improvements.Support database patching, upgrades, backup and recovery processes, and operational maintenance activities.Contribute to high availability, failover, monitoring, and alerting practices for critical database platforms.Work with application and infrastructure teams to troubleshoot database-related issues and improve reliability and performance.Support database security and access management, including roles, permissions, and operational controls.Apply a full-stack DBA mindset across infrastructure, database engine, and SQL layers.
Required Skills and Experience:
Strong hands-on experience with Microsoft SQL Server.Solid experience with at least one additional DBMS, preferably Oracle or PostgreSQL.Proven experience in database performance tuning, including query optimization, execution plans, and indexing strategies.Practical experience with AWS database services, especially Amazon RDS for SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or Oracle.Basic understanding of Amazon Aurora.Experience managing both managed database services such as RDS and self-managed database environments.Understanding of backup and recovery strategies, high availability and failover concepts, monitoring, and alerting.Experience with SQL tuning, troubleshooting, patching, upgrades, data modeling, and security and access management.Basic Linux knowledge, including navigation, troubleshooting, and log analysis.Advanced English skills.
Nice to Have
Experience with scripting or automation.Experience with Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform.Familiarity with monitoring tools such as CloudWatch, Performance Insights, or similar platforms.Experience with cloud cost optimization.
Hiring conditions:
Fully remote from Costa RicaUSD payment as contractor - 30-32 USD/hour1 year contract