Database and Platform Expert Opportunity - Westminster, CO
We are seeking an experienced IBM Db2 Database and Platform Expert to assess, optimize, and enhance the database environment supporting a mission-critical transportation management system (TMS).
This role will focus on improving database performance, reliability, security, and operational efficiency while supporting the migration of an existing, large-scale production IBM Db2 database from Windows to Linux. The successful candidate will bring deep expertise in IBM Db2 LUW, Windows Server administration, and Linux infrastructure, along with a proven ability to execute complex production migrations while maintaining application availability and business continuity.
The individual will work closely with application, database, infrastructure, and support teams, as well as IBM support and engineering, to resolve technical issues, implement improvements, and ensure a successful migration.
Contract Details- 6-month contract (will be extended)
- Hybrid requirement: 4 days/week in office
- Office in Westminster, CO
- Target Pay: 85/hr, W2
Key Responsibilities
Database Assessment and Performance Optimization
- Assess the existing Db2 architecture, configuration, security, and operational support model.
- Analyze database workloads, SQL performance, execution plans, indexing strategies, locking, deadlocks, schema design, tablespaces, buffer pools, memory configuration, logging, and capacity.
- Identify performance bottlenecks, reliability concerns, security gaps, and operational risks, and implement prioritized improvements.
- Review customer-specific SQL queries, understand their underlying business requirements and workflows, and tune or rewrite queries where appropriate. Recommend application or workflow changes when database-level optimization alone is insufficient.
- Optimize Db2 for high-volume transactional workloads supporting dispatch, order management, rating, billing, settlement, reporting, and system integrations.
- Troubleshoot production incidents involving performance degradation, failed jobs, storage constraints, replication, backup and recovery, and database availability.
Windows Server Administration and Optimization
- Assess and optimize the Windows Server environment supporting Db2.
- Diagnose CPU utilization, memory pressure, paging, storage performance, disk latency, file system issues, network configuration, service accounts, security settings, and antivirus exclusions.
- Develop automation for database health checks, configuration validation, and backup verification using PowerShell or comparable tools.
- Establish performance baselines, monitoring standards, and operational best practices for Db2 and its supporting infrastructure.
Windows-to-Linux Database Migration
- Assess the readiness of the existing production Db2 environment for migration from Windows to Linux, accounting for application dependencies, custom SQL, scripts, file paths, authentication methods, schedulers, integrations, and backup processes.
- Develop and support the migration strategy, including data migration methods, testing plans, cutover procedures, rollback plans, and validation criteria.
- Configure and optimize the target Linux environment for Db2, including file systems, storage mounts, permissions, user and group management, resource limits, networking, process management, service automation, and monitoring.
- Support the migration of the existing customer's production database, preserving its data, history, customizations, and application compatibility.
- Benchmark and validate application and database performance before and after migration.
- Ensure backup, recovery, monitoring, high availability, and disaster recovery capabilities are maintained or improved throughout the migration.
- Lead or support cutover activities, troubleshoot migration issues, and provide post-migration stabilization and performance tuning while minimizing business disruption.
IBM Support and Technical Collaboration
- Work directly with IBM support and engineering to investigate, escalate, and resolve open technical issues and support cases.
- Collaborate with internal application, database, infrastructure, and operations teams to resolve complex technical challenges.
- Document technical findings, risk assessments, configuration standards, migration runbooks, and prioritized recommendations.
- Provide knowledge transfer and operational guidance to internal teams to support long-term system reliability and maintainability.
Required Qualifications- Extensive hands-on experience administering, troubleshooting, and tuning IBM Db2 LUW in enterprise production environments.
- Strong expertise in Db2 configuration, buffer pools, tablespaces, memory management, logging, backup and recovery, indexing, statistics, and SQL execution plan analysis.
- Demonstrated experience optimizing large, transaction-intensive databases in business-critical environments.
- Deep Windows Server administration and performance-tuning experience, particularly for database workloads, including CPU, memory, paging, disk I/O, storage latency, file systems, and networking.
- Proficiency in PowerShell or comparable scripting tools for automation, diagnostics, health checks, and operational validation.
- Proven experience migrating an existing, live production Db2 database from Windows to Linux. Experience limited to implementing new Db2 environments on Linux will not be sufficient.
- Strong Linux administration skills relevant to Db2, including storage, file systems, permissions, user and group management, resource limits, processes, networking, and service automation.
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively with IBM support and engineering, including escalating complex issues and driving them toward resolution.
- Experience developing migration runbooks, cutover plans, rollback procedures, validation checklists, and post-migration support plans.
- Strong troubleshooting, performance analysis, and root-cause analysis skills in high-availability production environments.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical findings into actionable recommendations for technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications- Experience supporting TruckMate or a comparable transportation management system, with familiarity in dispatch, order management, rating, billing, settlement, EDI, telematics, finance, and operational reporting.
- Experience with Db2 high-availability and disaster-recovery technologies, including HADR, replication, clustering, or pureScale.
- Experience with enterprise Linux distributions, preferably Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES).
- Experience supporting 24/7 business-critical systems and executing planned maintenance or migration cutovers with minimal downtime.
- IBM Db2 or Linux certifications, or equivalent demonstrated enterprise production experience.
Expected Deliverables- Comprehensive current-state assessment of the existing Db2 environment.
- Prioritized recommendations addressing database performance, reliability, security, and operational risks.
- Implementation of agreed-upon Db2 and Windows Server tuning improvements, with supporting technical documentation.
- Target Linux platform design and recommended Db2 configuration standards.
- Migration strategy, cutover plan, rollback plan, and database validation approach.
- Hands-on support for the production database migration from Windows to Linux, including readiness assessment, cutover, validation, and post-migration stabilization.
- Pre-migration performance baseline and post-migration comparison report.
- Recommendations for monitoring, backup and recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery.
- Operational runbooks, configuration documentation, and knowledge-transfer materials for internal application, database, infrastructure, and support teams.