Principal Database Administrator

Job Description

Company: Cox Automotive Inc.
Location: North Hills, NY
Workplace Type: On-site
Employment Type: Permanent (Full-time)
Pay / Compensation: USD 178,200.00 – 297,000.00 per year (base salary; eligible for additional incentive program)

About the Role

The Principal Database Administrator will support multiple product teams across Dealer Solutions and play a key role in working on managed and optimized enterprise database systems cloud migration initiatives. This role will be responsible for managing, optimizing, and re-architecting the current on-premises database environment. As a key technical enabler of the organization’s cloud strategy, the Principal Database Administrator will first stabilize and remediate the existing database infrastructure, then design and execute a safe, phased migration to AWS.

This position bridges the gap between the current aging, monolithic on-premises database environment running on on-prem infrastructure and a future-state scalable, cost-efficient, cloud-native database platform. The ideal candidate is a technical leader who serves as the organization’s primary database authority, responsible for defining database strategy, driving cloud modernization efforts, advising architects and software engineers on data architecture decisions, ensuring high availability and security of enterprise platforms, and leading complex migration, resiliency, and performance initiatives. They possess deep expertise across both traditional relational databases and modern cloud-native data platforms while influencing technical direction across multiple engineering teams.

What You’ll Do / Key Responsibilities

• Manage, optimize, and re-architect the current on-premises database environment, stabilizing and remediating infrastructure prior to migration.
• Design and execute a safe, phased database migration to AWS, bridging aging on-premises infrastructure with cloud-native database platforms.
• Serve as the organization’s primary database authority, defining platform strategy and long-term evolution.
• Provide expert-level leadership for Microsoft SQL Server environments as the highest-level technical authority across database architecture, modernization, upgrades, cloud transformation, high availability, disaster recovery, replication, clustering, and backup/recovery with minimal business disruption and downtime.
• Perform logical and physical database design, data modeling, performance management/monitoring, and architecting and building databases from business requirements through planning, testing, and production deployment.
• Deliver performance tuning, query optimization, indexing strategies, and execution plan analysis.
• Design and implement high-availability and disaster-recovery architectures (clustering, replication, failover, backup/restore strategies) across critical 24×7 systems.
• Design and support database solutions spanning relational databases and microservice architectures, selecting the right technology for the right workload.
• Collaborate closely with software engineers and architects on application and data architecture decisions to ensure scalability, resilience, and performance.
• Utilize observability tools and operational intelligence platforms to proactively monitor database health and drive data-informed operational decisions.
• Build and mature CI/CD practices for database changes, including schema migrations, deployment automation, version control, and automated testing.
• Drive innovation and implementation across functional internal and external teams to meet business requirements.
• Mentor database administrators, influence architects and developers, and lead strategic initiatives across multiple product teams.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related discipline with 10+ years of experience in database administration, database engineering, or related technical roles (or Master’s degree with 8+ years, Ph.D. with 5+ years, or 14+ years of directly related experience).
• 8+ years of experience with multiple AWS RDS database technologies (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle) and NoSQL services such as DynamoDB, with an understanding of trade-offs between AWS-managed variants.
• 8+ years of experience in performance tuning, indexing strategies, query optimization, and execution plan analysis.
• 8+ years of experience building and maturing CI/CD practices for database changes (schema migrations, deployment automation, version control, automated testing).
• Deep experience in database design, database code development, database administration, and systems engineering to build high-performance, fault-tolerant database systems and infrastructure for database-centric applications.
• Proven experience supporting 24×7 production systems with strict SLAs and uptime requirements.
• Expertise in high-availability and disaster-recovery technologies (e.g., clustering, replication, failover, backup/restore strategies, log shipping, GoldenGate, Always On, replica sets) to reduce risk and downtime across critical systems.
• Demonstrated experience providing expert-level technical authority and leadership for Microsoft SQL Server environments.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to translate technical trade-offs for engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working in Agile development environments (Scrum, Kanban, or similar), collaborating within sprint-based delivery cycles.
• Must currently be authorized to work in the United States for any employer without current or future sponsorship.

Preferred / Bonus Qualifications (if applicable)

(None specified in job posting)

Benefits & Perks

• Base salary range of $178,200.00 – $297,000.00, with eligibility for additional compensation via an incentive program.
• Flexible paid vacation policy (take as much vacation with pay as deemed consistent with duties, company needs, and obligations).
• Seven paid holidays throughout the calendar year.
• Up to 160 hours of paid wellness leave annually for personal wellness or that of family members.
• Additional paid time off including bereavement leave, time off to vote, jury duty leave, volunteer time off, military leave, and parental leave.

Compensation Details

Compensation includes a base salary in the range of $178,200.00 – $297,000.00. The base salary may vary within the anticipated base pay range based on factors such as the ultimate location of the position and the selected candidate’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. Position may be eligible for additional compensation that may include an incentive program.

Work Authorization

Applicants must currently be authorized to work in the United States for any employer without current or future sponsorship.

Equal Opportunity Employer

EOE, including disability/vets