Staff Database Administrator

*Summary*

We’re hiring a Staff Database Administrator to support and protect the sum
of all human knowledge, shared by Wikipedia and its sister projects.Much of
that knowledge is stored using MariaDB, and therefore we’re looking for
someone with a strong expertise in designing, operating and optimizing
relational (SQL) database infrastructure at large scale (MariaDB and other
MySQL derivatives in particular), to support and scale the technology
behind Wikipedia and its sister projects—some of the most visited websites
on the internet.

Our work powers the daily experiences of hundreds of millions of users.
You’ll have the opportunity to learn, take on new challenges, and make a
tangible difference on a global scale. As a Staff DBA you will be
responsible for the health of our database systems and the products and
services that depend on them – including their availability and
performance. You’ll join the SRE Data Persistence team, a small,
high-impact team responsible for Wikimedia’s production storage & retrieval
systems and infrastructure, part of a larger sub-department of Site
Reliability Engineers in Product & Technology.

*You are responsible for:*

– Ensure the health and performance of Wikimedia’s production relational
database systems, and the structural integrity of its data.
– Deploy, maintain and troubleshoot relational database systems in
production, development and staging environments
– Design, implement, manage and automate (multi-site) replication
topologies
– Consult in the design of database schemas and queries, and
implement/oversee database schema changes in production
– Monitor, debug and optimize database query performance
– Improve observability (alerting, metrics, monitoring) of database
infrastructure
– Capacity and infrastructure planning, including (on-prem) bare-metal
hardware
– Contribute to the automation of common database management workflows
– Enable the reliable generation and timely restoration of database
backups
– Maintain relationships with the MariaDB upstream
projects/organizations, and working with upstream developers on bug
identification and resolution
– Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation shared across the team – taking
part in incident response, diagnosis and follow-up on system outages or
alerts across Wikimedia’s production infrastructure.

*You share our values and guiding principles, and work in accordance with
them*

*Skills and Experience:*

– Advanced level of experience with MariaDB or MySQL database
administration as the primary production database, including complex
replication topologies at scale
– Advanced proficiency in SQL and query/schema optimization
– Experience with debugging query performance and schema design
– Experience with high traffic and highly available website
architectures and operations
– Experience with MySQL high availability and replication management
tooling
– Knowledge of Linux and IO/data storage concepts, internals and
troubleshooting (we run Linux in production exclusively)
– 6+ years experience in a hands-on DBA role as part of a team
– Solid English language skills
– Ability to travel 1-2 times a year
– Ability to work independently in a fast paced environment, as an
effective part of a globally distributed team, including ticket tracking
systems and asynchronous communication tools
– B.Sc. or M.Sc. in Computer Science, or equivalent work experience

*Additionally, we’d love it if you have:*

– Proficiency at automation/programming/scripting (Python) and standard
software development practices
– Experience with SRE practices and tooling, including configuration
management & orchestration *strongly* preferred.
– Experience with LAMP stack technologies (PHP/HHVM, memcached/Redis) –
MediaWiki experience is a definite plus
– Experience with other advanced distributed storage and database
systems (Swift, Ceph, Cassandra, etc.) is a plus
– Strong track record of open source contributions is a major plus

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates
Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a
world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all
knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute
something to our shared knowledge, and that everyone should be able to
access that knowledge freely. We host Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects,
build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia
content, support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia
possible, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and free
knowledge to thrive.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a charitable, not-for-profit organization that
relies on donations. We receive donations from millions of individuals
around the world, with an average donation of about $15. We also receive
donations through institutional grants and gifts. The Wikimedia Foundation
is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San
Francisco, California, USA.

*As an equal opportunity employer, the Wikimedia Foundation values having a
diverse workforce and continuously strives to maintain an inclusive and
equitable workplace. We encourage people with a diverse range of
backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate against any person based upon
their race, traits historically associated with race, religion, color,
national origin, sex, pregnancy or related medical conditions, parental
status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status
as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic
information, or any other legally protected characteristics.*

The Wikimedia Foundation is a remote-first organization with staff members
including contractors based 40+ countries***. Salaries at the Wikimedia
Foundation are set in a way that is competitive, equitable, and consistent
with our values and culture. The anticipated annual pay range of this
position for applicants based within the United States is US$ 134,133 to
US$ 208,254 with multiple individualized factors, including cost of living
in the location, being the determinants of the offered pay. For applicants
located outside of the US, the pay range will be adjusted to the country of
hire. We neither ask for nor take into consideration the salary history of
applicants. The compensation for a successful applicant will be based on
their skills, experience and location.

**Please note that we are currently able to hire in the following
countries: *Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel,
Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Singapore, South
Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States
of America and Uruguay. Our non-US employees are hired through a local
third party Employer of Record (EOR).

We periodically review this list to streamline to ensure alignment with our
hiring requirements.

All applicants can reach out to their recruiter to understand more about
the specific pay range for their location during the interview process.

*If you are a qualified applicant requiring assistance or an accommodation
to complete any step of the application process due to a disability, you
may contact us at recruiting@wikimedia.org or +1 (415) 839-6885.*

*More information*

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