Overview
Provides hands-on database administration, data quality assurance, and system support for UNHCR operational data systems to ensure reliability, security, performance, and fitness for operational use.
Key Responsibilities
- Conduct daily health checks of production databases.
- Monitor database fragmentation levels and perform index maintenance.
- Track table sizes and growth trends.
- Perform routine clean-up of obsolete log tables, audit records, and temporary data.
- Apply database patches and updates.
- Ensure test and development databases remain structurally aligned with production environments.
- Maintain a centralized database tracking log.
- Monitor outstanding database issues and escalate unresolved risks.
- Refresh test databases from production.
- Maintain records of test database refreshes.
- Ensure sensitive personal data is masked or anonymized in non-production environments.
- Monitor test database size and perform clean-up.
- Coordinate with developers and system owners prior to major changes to test environments.
- Execute duplicate detection and validation checks on key datasets.
- Conduct routine data quality checks across systems.
- Address data inconsistencies reported by users or identified through validation scripts.
- Verify referential integrity between related tables and systems.
- Validate datasets against defined business rules.
- Maintain a shared data quality issue log.
- Verify the successful completion of daily database backups.
- Support periodic restore tests.
- Coordinate with DIST on backup schedules, retention periods, and storage allocation.
- Maintain up-to-date documentation on backup and recovery procedures.
- Keep an inventory of backed-up databases.
- Investigate failed SQL jobs and scheduled tasks.
- Provide technical support to field offices on database connectivity and performance issues.
- Troubleshoot synchronization failures between interconnected systems.
- Maintain a log of recurring issues.
- Respond to urgent database-related incidents.
- Develop and maintain dashboards to monitor database health and performance indicators.
- Prepare weekly status reports.
- Support the configuration of alerts for critical incidents.
- Track and analyse database performance trends.
- Develop SQL and Python scripts to automate repetitive tasks.
- Support data extraction requests.
- Automate routine health check reports and anomaly detection processes.
- Develop scripts to identify data quality issues and unusual patterns.
- Document database schemas, table relationships, and key data flows.
- Maintain and update SOPs for common procedures.
- Keep an up-to-date inventory of all supported databases.
- Document custom scripts.
Required Experience
- Minimum 4 years of relevant experience with a High School Diploma, or 2 years of relevant experience with a Bachelor’s degree or higher.
- Experience in information management, database support, or data systems administration.
- Demonstrated experience supporting operational data systems and ensuring data quality.
- Experience supporting humanitarian or development operations (desirable).
- Familiarity with large-scale operational databases and system interoperability (desirable).
Qualifications
High School Diploma or Bachelor’s degree or higher.
