Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Return Path - Oracle Database Administrator, Sr. QA Automation Engineer

Return Path is a growing, thriving, Inc 500 company full of smart, motivated people. Our 150+ employees are a tightly-knit, super-focused and incredibly dedicated team. We work hard, and we*re passionate about making email work better for both businesses and consumers. One of our primary goals is to provide a challenging, exciting, fair, rewarding, and growth-oriented environment for all employees. We are recognized as industry leaders and innovators. How do we do this? Well, we have the internal architecture to optimize our talent and turbo-evolve its development. This role will support our competitive position in the following ways:
The Impact You*ll Have at RP

Under general direction of the VP, Operations, the Database Administrator will work closely with other DBA*s on the team, systems administrators, application support specialists, and developers to design and monitor Return Path*s infrastructures and applications to perform optimally. The DBA will need to wear multiple hats as a data architect, application support and system DBA.

Responsibilities

Development/Data Architect
* Oracle SQL and PL/SQL writing, pro-active tuning and design
* Primary participant in any projects that interface with the database
* Writes and test scripts for database changes
* Creates and maintains logical design models for applications
* Planning, design, and development of new database applications, or major changes to existing applications
* Working with developers to create and modify primary objects (tables, views, indexes) based on application design requirements
* Table design, security design, impact analysis, and table modification
* Acts as a data administrator * management of an organization*s data and metadata
* Researching new database-related products to enhance product offerings

Systems
* Installing, upgrading and tuning Oracle in all development, test, production environments
* Responsible for the physical database structure and modifications to that structure
* Monitoring, forecasting and allocating system storage and structure for current and future storage requirements for the database system (i.e. capacity planning)
* Creating primary database storage structures (tablespaces)
* Database user management / privileges
* Ensuring compliance with the company*s Oracle license agreement
* Monitors databases, identifies hardware and software bottlenecks and carries out performance tuning of production databases
* Planning for backup and recovery of database information (e.g. RMAN, Data Guard )
* Interfaces with customer service and account management and vendors.
* Establishes and implements strategies to ensure the integrity of core administrative data and non-interruptible access to that data by its users/applications while maintaining the level of security defined by the appropriate data steward(s)

Application Support
* Works with application support and customer relationship teams to resolve customer-impacting issues
* Contacting Oracle Corp for technical support
* Perform custom data extracts from production environment into the dev and test environments in order to facilitate QA testing
* Participates in code releases (database patches) to production environment
* Research of database-impacting issues (performance, contention, run-away queries, etc.)
* Requires interface with customer service and account management
* Research of new database-related tools
* Development of tool/script to support database application support functions

What does it take to be successful in this role?
* 5+ years Oracle SQL and PL/SQL development experience
* 3+ years of Oracle System DBA-related work experience
* Experience working the large databases (e.g. partitioning, parallel query)
* Experience with designing and debugging ETL procedures
* Strong familiarity with UNIX command-level file processing and automation through shell scripting and Perl
* Ability to provide after hours on-call support (pager)
* Working knowledge of Solaris and Intel Unix Server configuration, installation, testing, and maintenance
* Database performance management using system and network monitoring tools
* Backup and recovery implementation
* Experience with PHP desirable
* Experience with Oracle Streams and Oracle Data Guard a plus
* OCA/OCP certification a plus
* Strong analytical thinking and troubleshooting skills centered on compiling technical and business-related information that can be utilized to provide insight, analysis and resolutions for technical challenges
* Experience working in an Agile Engineering framework
* Strong interpersonal communication skills regarding operational and service issues
* Ability to compile and present solutions that with will drive success for business
* Experience in Salesforce.com integration a plus
* Understanding of email industry a plus
* Desired Education Level: BS/BA required

Role Specific Competencies:
* Quality- Is attentive to detail and accuracy, is committed to excellence, looks for improvements continuously, monitors quality levels, finds root cause of quality problems, owns/acts on quality problems.
* Technical Knowledge & Skills - Adapts to new technologies; demonstrates required technical skills; keeps technical skills up-to-date; troubleshoots technological problems; uses technology to increase productivity.
* Analytical Skills - Thinks analytically and creatively to make the most of available data. Generates new ideas, takes risks, proposes change, encourages innovation, and solves problems creatively.

In addition to the above, you must be a good fit at Return Path. To be successful here, you must demonstrate Personal/Professional Growth, Professionalism, Flawless Execution, and Strategic Thinking; have a Positive Impact and a great sense of humor. Visit our website to read detailed descriptions of expectations at each of the 4 levels at RP: (1) Learning, (2) Applying, (3) Guiding and (4) Shaping. This position is categorized at the Applying level.

What it's like to work here
It's great! From the CEO and senior management team to the newest entry-level employee, we are a company that cares a lot about fostering a great work environment and a fun, energetic, success-oriented culture. We have a strong philosophical belief that our people are our most important assets. And we don't just pay lip service to that phrase -- we incorporate it into our policies, and we live it every day. Yes, that philosophy means we have generous "traditional" benefits, and it also means we take a lot of time to focus on high quality management and leadership, and time to make sure everyone in the company is in the right job, knows how his or her job contributes to the overall company mission, and has a clear sense of learning and career growth. We have great employee retention over the years because people love coming to work here and really feel like they're part of something special. For more information visit www.returnpath.net
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Join a Colorado best company to work for!

Return Path is a growing, thriving, Inc 500 company full of smart, motivated people. Our 150+ employees are a tightly-knit, super-focused and incredibly dedicated team. We work hard, and we*re passionate about making email work better for both businesses and consumers. One of our primary goals is to provide a challenging, exciting, fair, rewarding, and growth-oriented environment for all employees. We are recognized as industry leaders and innovators. How do we do this? Well, we have the internal architecture to optimize our talent and turbo-evolve its development. This role will support our competitive position in the following ways:

The Impact You*ll Have at RP

This opportunity is for an individual with strong automation skills, with proven experience building automated test frameworks and supporting QA team's in their uses. An ideal candidate enjoys working in a collaborative environment, has a strong sense of responsibility and accountability for themselves and for their team members, likes to build systems which test other systems, enjoys integrating test automation into continuous build environments, and is passionate about testing.
* Create automated regression test scripts to be used with a continuous integration model to ensure software builds are stable.
* Work with development to create automated unit test scripts.
* Ensure that tests being developed get run and provide feedback to developers and QA.
* Support the QA team in their efforts to create automated testing.
* Build and maintain automated systems to run tests and track the results.
* Develop reporting, monitoring and metric based tracking of test results.
* Communicate issues to their supervisor that require immediate attention.
* Provide open communication with peers, development, and product management regarding problems or enhancements to the software that may affect our systems or clients.

What does it take to be successful in this role?
* 5+ years of experience distributed between testing and development environments.
* Experience writing automated Unit, Integration and System tests.
* Experience with version control systems required, including Subversion.
* Experience with scripting languages such as Perl, Java and UNIX shell required.
* SQL/Oracle, UNIX plus vi editor experience required.
* B. S. in Computer Science or Computer Information Systems or equivalent combination of work and education.

Role Specific Competencies:
* Communication * Communicates well both verbally and in writing; utilizes appropriate medium for communication based on the situation, delivers effective presentations, shares information and ideas with others, has good listening skills. Has ability to explain abstract / complex concepts to middle & upper management, both verbally and in writing, and influence behavior.
* Quality* Is attentive to detail and accuracy, is committed to excellence, looks for improvements continuously, monitors quality levels, finds root cause of quality problems, owns/acts on quality problems.
* Technical Knowledge & Skills - Adapts to new technologies; demonstrates required technical skills; keeps technical skills up-to-date; troubleshoots technological problems; uses technology to increase productivity.
In addition to the above, you must be a good fit at Return Path. To be successful here, you must demonstrate Personal/Professional Growth, Professionalism, Flawless Execution, and Strategic Thinking; have a Positive Impact and a great sense of humor. Visit our website to read detailed descriptions of expectations at each of the 4 levels at RP: (1) Learning, (2) Applying, (3) Guiding and (4) Shaping. This position is categorized at the Applying level.

What it's like to work here
It's great! From the CEO and senior management team to the newest entry-level employee, we are a company that cares a lot about fostering a great work environment and a fun, energetic, success-oriented culture. We have a strong philosophical belief that our people are our most important assets. And we don't just pay lip service to that phrase -- we incorporate it into our policies, and we live it every day. Yes, that philosophy means we have generous "traditional" benefits, and it also means we take a lot of time to focus on high quality management and leadership, and time to make sure everyone in the company is in the right job, knows how his or her job contributes to the overall company mission, and has a clear sense of learning and career growth. We have great employee retention over the years because people love coming to work here and really feel like they're part of something special. For more information visit www.returnpath.net