Job Description
Company: Syngenta
Location: Durham, NC
Workplace Type: On-site
Employment Type: Full-time
About the Role
Syngenta Seeds Field Crops is a global agricultural technology leader delivering innovative seed and trait solutions to support farmers and promote sustainable agriculture. We are seeking a Senior Database Administrator in Durham, NC, to lead the administration, optimization, security, and modernization of enterprise database platforms. This role combines hands-on operational administration with strategic platform ownership, automation, and cross-team collaboration.
What You’ll Do / Key Responsibilities
- Oversee, tune, protect, and track enterprise datastores across AWS cloud and corporate networks, covering Aurora PostgreSQL, RDS, and related platforms.
- Troubleshoot critical production incidents and address latency, clustering, replication, failover, backup, and disaster recovery challenges.
- Formulate database roadmaps, architecture benchmarks, operational runbooks, and service governance standards aligned with company goals.
- Direct platform modernization projects by migrating legacy databases to cloud-managed solutions and strengthening infrastructure resilience.
- Coordinate data ingestion, CDC pipelines, synchronization, schema structures, and data modeling for reliable business reporting.
- Implement security policies, encryption controls, access governance, vulnerability patching, and change management routines.
- Collaborate with cloud, engineering, and software teams while offering technical coaching and mentorship to junior DBAs.
Requirements & Qualifications
- Minimum of 7 years managing mission-critical enterprise database systems in 24/7 production settings.
- Practical expertise running AWS managed databases, particularly Amazon RDS and Aurora PostgreSQL.
- Comprehensive mastery of SQL, query plan analysis, partitioning, indexing strategies, clustering, and performance optimization.
- Extensive background designing high-availability architectures, disaster recovery plans, automated backups, and replication streams.
- Hands-on experience with production telemetry, operational alerting, incident triage, and root-cause remediation workflows.
- Strong scripting, task automation, problem-solving, and cross-functional communication abilities.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent practical background.
Preferred / Bonus Qualifications
- Familiarity with diverse database engines such as Oracle or MongoDB.
- Demonstrated success leading cloud database migrations and infrastructure upgrades.
- Working knowledge of Infrastructure-as-Code tooling, CI/CD automation, and modern DevOps practices.
- Understanding of enterprise security compliance frameworks within scientific or research environments.
- Professional certifications in AWS or database administration.
Benefits & Perks
- Comprehensive healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision) starting on day one.
- 401(k) retirement plan featuring company matching and profit-sharing contributions.
- Paid time off, paid company holidays, parental leave, and tuition reimbursement.
- Flexible working arrangements, wellness incentives, and corporate discount programs.
U.S. work authorization required without sponsorship. Syngenta provides equal opportunity employment without discrimination.