About this role

The Database Hosting Team is an integral part of Platform Hosting Services which sits under the broader Aladdin Engineering. Hosting Services is responsible for operating and engineering the reliability, stability and performance of the firm's financial systems including Aladdin and ensuring its availability to our business partners and customers.

We are a globally distributed team spanning multiple regions and providing engineering & operational support for online transaction processing, data warehousing, data replication and distributed data processing platforms.

Your role and impact:

Data is the backbone of any world-class financial institution. The Database Operations Team is tasked with ensuring the resiliency and integrity of that data, whilst providing instantaneous access to a large global user base at BlackRock and across many Institutional Clients. As preeminent specialists on database technology, our team is involved in every facet of system design, implementation, tuning and monitoring, using a wide variety of industry-leading database technologies.

We also develop code to provide analysis and insight and to automate & scale our solutions.

Although the team’s specialty is database technology, in order to excel in our role, we need to understand the environment that our technology operates in; understanding of the business needs, the application server stack, the interaction between the database software, the operating system and host hardware are significant factors allowing us to deliver the best service possible.

We are passionate about performance and innovation. From the top of the firm down, we embrace the diversity of values, identities and ideas brought forth by our employees and offer phenomenal flexibility to enhance work life balance.

Your responsibilities:

The role requires providing operations, development and project support within the global database environment across various database platforms. Key responsibilities of the candidate are as follows:

Operational support of a wide variety of database technology

• Engineering, Administration and Operations of OLTP, OLAP, Data Warehousing database platforms and Distributed No-SQL platforms.
• Collaboration with Infrastructure teams, application developers and business teams across multiple time zones to ensure the highest quality service to the Aladdin users.
• Automation and Development of database operational, monitoring and maintenance toolsets to achieve the desired Scale and Efficiency
• Database Configuration Management, Capacity and Scale Management, Schema Releases/Consistency, Security, Disaster Recovery and Audit Management
• Management and ownership of Operational Incidents including root-cause analysis of critical issues, resolution and mitigation.

Assess issues for severity, troubleshoot proactively and notify key stakeholders Focus on service impact and timely resolution of critical investment system issues Escalate outages until services are restored working in collaboration with Client Technical Services and other tech teams Coordinate with external vendor technology support when required. Once issues are resolved in the short term, focus on the root cause and long-term remediation.

Project-based participation

Participate in major upgrades and migration/consolidation exercises Creatively explore and implement new product features Actively contribute to the Performance Tuning and Engineering activities.

Contribute to our software toolset

Contribute to the monitoring and maintenance utilities in Perl, Python and Java Contribute to data captures to enable more in-depth analysis of the system.

You have:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field preferred
• 3-5 years of experience in Database administration, preferably in a similar role
• Keen enthusiasm for acquiring new technical skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with senior management from both IT and business areas.
• Understanding of large-scale enterprise application setup across Datacenters/cloud. 
• Willingness to work during weekends on-site on DBA activities and designated shift hours.
• Experience with any database platforms like SAP Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, Apache Cassandra, Cosmos DB, Oracle, PostgreSQL and data warehouse platforms like Snowflake, Greenplum.

• Experience with any data replication offerings like: Sybase Rep, MSSQL HA, HVR(FiveTran)
• Exposure to Public Cloud Platform offerings like Microsoft Azure, Amazon (AWS) and Google (GCP)
• Exposure to programming languages like Python, Perl, Java, Go; automation tools like Ansible/AWX; source control systems like GIT and Azure DevOps
• Experience with Operating Systems like Linux and Windows
• Solid background in supporting mission-critical applications, performing deep technical analysis and problem-solving skills.
• Demonstrating flexibility and willingness to different technologies and writing excellent code.
• Exposure to Project Management
• A passion for interactive troubleshooting and operational support and keen attention to detail, critical thinking and the urge to drive innovation.
• Boundless creativity and a desire to constantly learn new technologies.
• A belief in data-driven analysis and problem solving and knowledge and drive to scale technology to the needs of tomorrow.

OS: Familiarity with Linux/Windows

• Well-versed with all shell commands like grep, find sed, awk, ls, cp, netstat, etc.
• Well versed with commands to check CPU usage, memory usage and disk usage on a Unix/Linux system using OS native commands

If any of this excites you, we want to talk to you about your new role in our team

Other personal characteristics:

• Integrity and the highest ethical standards
• Quickly adjusts sophisticated data and information and displays a developed learning agility.
• Self-starter with the personal aim to achieve superior performance.
• Natural curiosity and desire to always learn.

Our benefits

To help you stay energized, engaged and inspired, we offer a wide range of employee benefits including: retirement investment and tools designed to help you in building a sound financial future; access to education reimbursement; comprehensive resources to support your physical health and emotional well-being; family support programs; and Flexible Time Off (FTO) so you can relax, recharge and be there for the people you care about.

Our hybrid work model

BlackRock’s hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration and apprenticeship that enriches the experience of our employees, while supporting flexibility for all. Employees are currently required to work at least 4 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 1 day a week. Some business groups may require more time in the office due to their roles and responsibilities. We remain focused on increasing the impactful moments that arise when we work together in person – aligned with our commitment to performance and innovation. As a new joiner, you can count on this hybrid model to accelerate your learning and onboarding experience here at BlackRock.

About BlackRock

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more people experience financial well-being.  Our clients, and the people they serve, are saving for retirement, paying for their children’s educations, buying homes and starting businesses. Their investments also help to strengthen the global economy: support businesses small and large; finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities; and facilitate innovations that drive progress.

This mission would not be possible without our smartest investment – the one we make in our employees. It’s why we’re dedicated to creating an environment where our colleagues feel welcomed, valued and supported with networks, benefits and development opportunities to help them thrive.

For additional information on BlackRock, please visit @blackrock | Twitter: @blackrock | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/blackrock

BlackRock is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.  We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to age, disability, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and other protected characteristics at law.