Job Description & Details
This is a heavy-duty, hands-on migration role focused on dragging legacy enterprise databases out of on-prem data centers and safely landing them in AWS or Google Cloud. You won't just be drawing architecture diagrams; you'll actually be writing the migration scripts, handling schema conversions, and sweating the cutover window details when production traffic goes dark.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
You will spend your days dissecting legacy schemas, stored procedures, and gnarly batch jobs that nobody has touched in a decade, then mapping them to cloud-native targets like Aurora, AlloyDB, or RDS. A typical week involves debugging why a multi-terabyte data migration stalled halfway through, building automated reconciliation scripts to prove data integrity, and arguing with security teams about IAM roles and encryption-at-rest. You will also leverage AI coding assistants to draft boilerplate migration scripts and optimize heavy SQL queries before pushing your code through GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
The Core Tech Stack
You need absolute fluency in traditional relational databases like SQL Server, Oracle, or PostgreSQL, paired with deep production experience in either AWS or Google Cloud Platform. Mastery of database internals—indexing, query tuning, connection pooling, and binary log replication (CDC)—is non-negotiable because when a lift-and-shift hits performance bottlenecks post-migration, all eyes will be on you to fix the execution plans.
Interview Expectations
Expect the hiring manager to hand you a scenario where a database cutover window is bleeding past its allotted maintenance time and ask you how you handle the rollback versus push-forward decision. They want to see your risk management mindset, not just technical idealism. You should also be ready for a deep dive into data reconciliation strategies where you explain how you would prove to auditors that zero financial records were lost or corrupted during a multi-terabyte cross-platform migration.
Application Advice
Skip the generic project management fluff on your resume and heavily emphasize your actual scar tissue from real database migrations. Make sure keywords like schema conversion, data validation, CDC, GitLab, and specific cloud services like Amazon Aurora or Google Cloud SQL appear prominently to satisfy the automated parsers. Frame your past projects around how you minimized downtime and handled data integrity validation when things went sideways.