Director Database Jobs in Reston, VA (NOW HIRING)

CGH Technologies, Inc. (CGH) is a business solutions firm, specializing in Data Management, Software Engineering, and Business Intelligence solutions. Located within the Washington corridor, CGH has worked successfully with Government, Commercial and International sectors, providing management consulting, software development and facilities/infrastructure design, maintenance and program management support of large, complex operational environments and facilities security maintenance. CGH has an exciting opportunity for a PostgreSQL DBA/Developer to join the CGH Team.

Purpose:

We are seeking a skilled and motivated PostgreSQL Database Administrator / Developer to join our team supporting a federal government customer. This mid-level role sits at the intersection of database operations and application development, requiring a candidate who is equally comfortable writing advanced SQL, building robust procedural logic, supporting production systems, and working with spatial data using PostGIS. The ideal candidate brings enthusiasm for database technology, takes initiative, and continuously strives to improve performance, reliability, and data quality.

Responsibilities:

• Maintain PostgreSQL instances across development, staging, and production environments.
• Monitor database health, disk usage, query performance, and resource utilization; take corrective action proactively in consultation with senior database personnel.
• Maintain replication, high-availability, and failover solutions.
• Develop complex SQL queries, including CTEs, window functions, and analytical SQL to support application and reporting requirements.
• Create and maintain stored procedures, functions, triggers, and views using PL/pgSQL and other procedural languages.
• Collaborate with application developers to optimize ORM-generated queries and define effective data models.
• Participate in code reviews for database-facing application code and database schema changes.
• Analyze and resolve performance issues using EXPLAIN/EXPLAIN ANALYZE, pg_stat_* views, and profiling tools.
• Design and implement indexing strategies, including B-Tree, GiST, GIN, BRIN, partial, and composite indexes.
• Tune PostgreSQL configuration parameters related to memory, parallelism, vacuuming, and checkpoints to optimize workload performance.
• Identify and resolve locking, bloat, and vacuum-related issues, including autovacuum tuning.
• Design and implement spatial schemas, geometry/geography types, and spatial indexes using PostGIS.
• Develop spatial queries for proximity searches, buffering, intersection, routing, and coordinate transformations.
• Load, validate, and maintain spatial datasets from GIS formats such as Shapefile, GeoJSON, and GML.
• Optimize PostGIS query performance, including spatial join strategies and GiST index tuning.
• Proactively identify risks, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement.
• Document schemas, runbooks, and operational procedures, ensuring documentation remains current.

Qualifications

Number of Years Experience Required:

• 7+ years of hands-on PostgreSQL development and administration experience in production environments.

Minimum Education and Certifications Required:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, GIS, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)

Technical Skills Required:

• Strong proficiency in advanced SQL, including window functions, CTEs, subqueries, set operations, and analytical queries.
• Solid PL/pgSQL development experience, including stored procedures, functions, triggers, and custom types.
• Demonstrated PostGIS experience, including spatial schema design, geometry functions, spatial joins, and index optimization.
• Experience with performance tuning, query plan analysis, indexing strategies, and server-side configuration.
• Experience working in Linux/Unix environments and scripting in Bash, Python, or similar languages.
• Familiarity with cloud-hosted PostgreSQL environments, including AWS RDS/Aurora PostgreSQL.
• Experience with GDAL/OGR, QGIS, or other GIS tools supporting PostGIS workflows.
• Working knowledge of containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code tools including Terraform and Ansible.
• Familiarity with CI/CD practices, database migration frameworks such as Flyway and Liquibase, and version-controlled schema management.
• Experience working in an Agile/Scrum environment.

Computer Skills:

• Microsoft Office 365

Other Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Required:

• U.S. Citizen or person with valid U.S. Work Visa who has lived in the U.S. for 3 or more years.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Self-starter mindset with the ability to identify issues independently and drive them to resolution.
• Works effectively both as a collaborative team member and as a self-directed professional with minimal supervision.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously, organize workloads efficiently, and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• While performing the duties of this job, the individual is regularly required to sit, stand, talk, hear and use a computer/keyboard/mouse for several hours on a daily basis.
• May require occasional light lifting of up to 10 pounds.
• The hiring range for this position is $130K - $150K/year based on relevant experience and position requirements as determined by the customer parameters.

Candidates selected will be subject to a Government background investigation and must meet eligibility requirements.

CGH offers a comprehensive benefits package to include medical, dental, vision, short- and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, commuter benefit, and flexible spending account. Other benefits include 401K, paid holidays, and Paid Time Off (PTO).

CGH is an Equal Opportunity Employer