Database Administrator

Caltech is a world-renowned science and engineering institute that marshals some of the world's brightest minds and most innovative tools to address fundamental scientific questions. We thrive on finding and cultivating talented people who are passionate about what they do. Join us and be a part of the diverse Caltech community.

IPAC (www.ipac.caltech.edu ), part of the Physics, Math, and Astronomy Division at Caltech (www.caltech.edu ), provides science operations, user support, data and archive services, and scientific vision to enhance discovery with observatories both in space and on the ground. We have an immediate opening for a Database Administrator to join IPAC’s Systems Engineering Team.

Activities supported by the Database Administrator will include a variety of small to extremely large databases, both Postgres and Oracle, supporting several major science archives along with many active and upcoming space and ground missions. Science archives include three of NASA's six Astrophysics Data Centers; IRSA, the curating steward of science products for NASA's infrared and submillimeter missions; the NASA Exoplanet Archive, a data guardian and tool to support community work of exoplanets and their host stars and host stars; and NED, an information system that facilitates research on objects beyond our Milky Way.

Your expertise will also be leveraged for IPAC’s work in supporting many active and upcoming space and ground missions including: SPHEREx, a NASA mission which will conduct a spectroscopic, infrared survey of the entire sky; Euclid, a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to study the geometry and nature of the dark Universe; and NEO Surveyor, a mission designed to discover and characterize most of the potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that are near Earth.

Come join us and be a part of keeping track of over 5,000 exoplanets, searching for asteroids, or finding supernovae!

Job Summary

Your role as a Database Administrator at IPAC will be to:

• Protect the integrity of the organization’s data: guarding against data corruption and developing strategies to recover from database failures.
• Proactively monitor the state and health of the database using a centralized database monitoring system.
• Tune database servers as needed based on access patterns and system limits.
• Provide support regarding access and software debugging and tuning.
• Facilitate the release of new content by staging and publishing from a staging/test database to the operations database.
• Handle database backup and recovery: writing scripts for backups and validating them through periodic recoveries.
• Develop auditing scripts based on each project's requirements.
• Maintain the database, including purging expired objects, archiving old logs, and refreshing stale statistics, performing software updates, supporting hardware upgrades and regression testing.
• Support the project development, operations, and systems teams to design and implement database schemas for existing and new endeavors.
• Provide consultation and assistance to applications developers regarding performance or functionality needs; advise on proposed system changes, upgrades, and optimization.
• Collaborate with other IPAC database administrators to share methods and tools across projects and consult on solutions to problems.
• Write and maintain documentation on procedures and recipes for managing a project’s database.

Basic Qualifications

If you have the following in your background, then we want to hear about your interest in joining our team:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in computer science or related field and 3+ years of experience as described below.
• Demonstrated ability in installing and administering relational database management systems.
• Experience with Oracle or PostgreSQL database administration.
• Experience with scripting and programming languages.
• System administration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

Beyond these basic qualifications, there are a set of skills and experiences which will add to your ability to contribute to the roles and responsibilities of an IPAC Database Administrator. The following might give you a head-start here, but even if these do not describe you or your experience, we would still like to hear from you:

• Experience maintaining all database-related server and client software, including user accounts and roles.
• Ability to perform regression testing following all DB software, operating system, and hardware upgrades.
• Design of schema with optimization of structures according to use cases.
• Experience with implementing stored procedures and functions.
• Familiarity with using database performance monitoring tools, vacuuming (periodic refreshes according to scheduled maintenance), and backup / replication strategies.
• Demonstrated ability to write and maintain documentation for procedures and recipes.
• Experience with parallel and/or non-relational database technologies.
• Experience operating database instances in a cloud environment.

Required Documents

• Resume
• Cover letter.

Application Details

• This position is an on-site role in Pasadena, California. There will be some allowability for remote work.
• This is an Essential Reporting position. In the event of an emergency on campus, an employee designated as essential reporting has essential job skills that are needed for response and recovery and is expected to report to Campus as soon as possible.
• Applicants for this position must be a United States (US) person as defined by ITAR regulations – A US person is a citizen of the United States, a lawful permanent resident alien of the US (“Green Card” holder), or individuals granted refugee and Asylee status under US law.
• Applications are due by Friday, May 3, 2024.

Life at Caltech/IPAC

IPAC is located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California by the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Caltech is small, but has an extraordinary science impact, with 47 Nobel Prizes awarded to faculty and alumni. Caltech manages the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA, the leading US center for the robotic exploration of the Solar System. Caltech also operates large-scale research facilities such as the Palomar and Keck Observatories, and LIGO, which in 2016 observed gravitational waves from colliding black holes for the first time.

Pasadena is a city known for its contributions to science and technology, and its rich history, cultural treasures, scenic beauty, and year-round comfortable weather create a desirable environment for life and ideas to thrive.

People choose to work at IPAC for many reasons, and the casual, employee-centric culture often leads to fulfilling, long-term careers and lasting relationships. Caltech’s benefits program offers a quality, competitive benefits package that is affordable for you and the Institute. The program provides a strong base of coverage for you and your dependents, and the ability to choose the plan and the level of coverage that best meet your needs. We also offer a 403(b) defined contribution plan to eligible staff as well as a Voluntary Retirement Savings (TDA) Plan. IPAC staff have access to the Institute’s facilities, including the athletic center, libraries, on-site daycare, professional development and enrichment classes, and Athenaeum club membership.