Ascension is seeking a seasoned IT Systems Administrator / Senior Database Management Specialist to administer, secure, maintain, and support enterprise database and related systems for Montgomery County Public Schools. The selected contractor will help MCPS maintain reliable access to critical technology services by protecting data, controlling system access, monitoring availability, resolving technical issues, and supporting upgrades, backups, recovery activities, and system improvements.

This position is best suited for an experienced database professional who can work independently, quickly assess technical conditions, and make sound recommendations in a complex public-sector technology environment. The ideal candidate combines hands-on database administration experience with an understanding of enterprise systems, data security, availability, disaster recovery, and technical documentation.

MCPS intends to use the resulting Master Agreement to acquire specialized personnel across the full systems development life cycle, including enterprise application support, infrastructure maintenance, system integration, data center operations, information security, and technical support.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The contractor will serve as a senior technical resource responsible for the administration and support of database management systems and associated enterprise infrastructure. The individual will monitor database health and availability, manage users and permissions, maintain backup and recovery processes, troubleshoot incidents, support upgrades and patches, and help ensure that database environments remain secure, available, accurate, and recoverable.

The contractor may support SQL-based databases, cloud-hosted or on-premises systems, enterprise applications, reporting platforms, integrations, and data-transfer processes. Depending on the assignment, the position may also support Oracle Fusion Cloud, Infor Lawson, Student Information Systems, Oracle Integration Cloud, business intelligence solutions, and other MCPS platforms.

The successful candidate must be:

• Self-directed and capable of working with limited supervision.
• Methodical, organized, and attentive to technical details.
• Skilled at diagnosing performance, access, availability, and data-integrity problems.
• Comfortable supporting production systems where disruptions may affect school and administrative operations.
• Able to balance planned maintenance, user requests, project activities, and unexpected incidents.
• Effective at communicating technical risks and recommended actions to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Prepared to work within established change-control, security, privacy, documentation, and escalation procedures.

Position Responsibilities and Anticipated Activities

The contractor will:

• Administer enterprise database platforms, database instances, related services, and supporting infrastructure.
• Monitor database availability, storage utilization, system logs, scheduled jobs, replication processes, and performance indicators.
• Configure database users, roles, permissions, schemas, security settings, and access controls in accordance with least-privilege principles.
• Implement approved database changes, configuration updates, service packs, patches, and version upgrades.
• Develop and maintain backup, restoration, disaster-recovery, and continuity procedures.
• Execute routine backups and periodically validate the recoverability and integrity of backup data.
• Troubleshoot database connectivity, query performance, locking, capacity, integration, authentication, and application-support issues.
• Analyze root causes of incidents and recommend corrective and preventive actions.
• Optimize database objects, queries, indexes, stored procedures, jobs, and configurations to improve reliability and performance.
• Maintain database security procedures, audit records, access documentation, and configuration baselines.
• Support the migration, conversion, cleansing, validation, loading, and reconciliation of data between enterprise systems.
• Execute approved data uploads, including HDL/HSDL processes where required for Oracle Fusion Cloud assignments.
• Assist application developers, analysts, system administrators, security personnel, and vendors in diagnosing cross-platform issues.
• Coordinate planned maintenance and release activities to minimize disruption to MCPS operations.
• Participate in performance, load, stress, failover, recovery, and readiness testing.
• Review database architecture and technical designs for performance, security, maintainability, and recoverability.
• Document system configurations, database inventories, data flows, troubleshooting procedures, recovery steps, and operational dependencies.
• Develop Standard Operating Procedures, runbooks, technical guides, change records, and knowledge-transfer materials.
• Respond to incidents, service requests, security findings, and system alerts within established response expectations.
• Escalate critical outages, security events, data-loss risks, and unresolved technical issues through the proper MCPS channels.
• Protect student, employee, financial, operational, and other sensitive information in accordance with MCPS requirements.
• Comply with change-management, configuration-management, quality assurance, privacy, security, and records-management procedures.
• Prepare weekly productivity reports summarizing work performed, deliverables completed, issues encountered, risks identified, and hours expended.
• Provide technical guidance and knowledge transfer to MCPS personnel and other contractor resources.
• Support after-hours maintenance or urgent restoration activities when authorized by the applicable Statement of Work.

Systems, Tools, and Processes

The contractor may be expected to work with some combination of the following:

Database and data platforms

• Microsoft SQL Server
• Oracle Database
• PostgreSQL or MySQL
• Azure SQL Database or other cloud-hosted databases
• SQL Server Management Studio
• Oracle Enterprise Manager
• SQL Developer
• SQL, T-SQL, or PL/SQL
• Extract, transform, and load tools
• Database monitoring and diagnostic utilities

Enterprise and integration environments

• Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM, ERP, or EPM
• Oracle Integration Cloud
• Infor Lawson
• Student Information Systems
• Microsoft Power BI
• Microsoft Power Automate
• Microsoft Azure
• Windows Server
• Linux
• Active Directory or identity-management platforms
• ServiceNow or comparable service-management systems

Methods and operating processes

• Incident, problem, change, release, and configuration management
• Database performance monitoring and tuning
• Role-based access control and least-privilege administration
• Backup, restoration, disaster recovery, and continuity planning
• Data migration, validation, reconciliation, and quality control
• Root-cause analysis
• System Development Life Cycle practices
• Agile/Scrum and DevOps support
• Technical documentation and version control
• Quality assurance and Independent Verification and Validation support