Director, Database Operations

Job Description

Job Description

Job title: Director, Database Operations

Reports to: Chief Information Officer

Department: Cloud Platforms

Location: Alpharetta, GA (Remote for non-GA residents)

Grade: 22

About Priority:

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. is a leading financial technology company on a mission to deliver a personalized, easy-to-adopt financial toolset that accelerates cash flow and optimizes working capital for businesses. Our vision is to eliminate the barriers to unlocking revenue - empowering businesses to grow faster and operate smarter.

We achieve this through the Priority Commerce Engine, an innovative platform that combines payables, acquiring, and banking and treasury solutions. This unified approach allows businesses to streamline financial operations, reduce unnecessary costs, and uncover new revenue opportunities.

At Priority, we're driven by results. We expect our people to be known for results - bringing expertise, momentum, and relentless focus to every challenge, helping our clients and each other thrive.

About the Role:

As the Director of Database Operations, you will lead the design, reliability, and operational strategy for the company's mission-critical data infrastructure supporting high-volume payment processing and banking systems. Your focus will be on Microsoft SQL Server and Amazon RDS MySQL/Aurora, ensuring scalability, high availability, low latency, and compliance with financial and data security regulations. You will oversee a team responsible for the 24/7 performance of databases that power transaction processing, reporting, fraud prevention, banking, and reconciliation services.

Responsibilities:

• Lead a team of senior DBAs and database engineers supporting production, staging, and dev/test environments.

• Manage database architecture, administration, and operations for MS SQL Server and Amazon RDS Aurora/MySQL in a high-volume, low-latency transaction environment.

• Partner with Software Engineering, Security, and DevOps, teams to drive the integration of database reliability into CI/CD pipelines and cloud infrastructure.

• Ensure database performance, security, and resilience across all payment systems, including authorization, settlement, chargeback, and risk platforms.

• Drive automation of routine operations (e.g., schema deployments, backups, failovers, capacity scaling).

• Implement disaster recovery and business continuity strategies, including geographically redundant architectures.

• Monitor and tune databases to support high throughput and low-latency transaction workloads, including query optimization and index tuning.

• Ensure compliance with PCI DSS, SOX, and other regulatory standards through strong controls, encryption, and access management.

• Evaluate and implement database tooling, observability platforms, and performance monitoring (e.g., Splunk, Elastic, DataDog, CloudWatch).

• Lead database modernization initiatives, including migration from legacy SQL infrastructure to Aurora or serverless RDS as appropriate.

• Own database vendor relationships, SLAs, and budget forecasting for software, cloud services, and infrastructure.

What Success Looks Like:

Success as a Director of Database Operations involves leading the strategic direction, management, and optimization of the organization's database infrastructure and ensuring the availability, performance, scalability, and security of its data systems. At a senior level, this role is critical for enabling the organization to leverage data effectively while minimizing risk and maximizing efficiency across a range of database environments.

Candidate Requirements:

• Communication: Clear writing, active listening, and the ability to explain technical topics in plain terms.

• Accountability: Track record of delivering quality work, owning outcomes, and learning from setbacks.

• Willingness to Learn: Demonstrated adaptability with new frameworks, technologies, or methodologies.

• Team Orientation: Experience working collaboratively in agile environments and contributing to shared goals.

• Self-Awareness: Openness to feedback, ability to recognize limitations, and willingness to give credit where due.

• 5+ years of experience in a leadership role over a database or other operations team.

• 5+ years of experience with supporting or engineering custom software on RDBMS platforms.

Preferred Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (Master’s preferred).

• Experience in a leadership role within a payments, fintech, or financial services environment.

• Expert-level knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server (2016 and newer), including Always On, replication, partitioning, and stored procedure tuning.

• Experience with MySQL, Aurora, and Snowflake programming and operations/tuning.

• Experience with AWS RDS hosted database services.

• Experience with Kafka, Redis, or other data streaming platforms.

• Deep understanding of data security, encryption (at rest/in transit), and regulatory compliance (PCI, SOX).

• Proven experience operating 24/7 high-availability databases in high-throughput systems (1,000+ TPS).

• Hands-on with IaC tools (e.g., CloudFormation, Terraform), scripting (PowerShell, Bash), and database automation.

• Certifications: AWS Database Specialty, Microsoft Certified: SQL Server/Azure DBA.

Leadership & Soft Skills:

• Strategic mindset with strong execution skills in high-stakes environments.

• Ability to mentor technical staff and foster high-performing teams.

• Exceptional incident management and cross-functional collaboration.

• Strong written and verbal communication, especially with internal stakeholders.

• Presentation skills communicating road maps, project status, incident root causes, and situational reports to management and stakeholders.

• Budget, strategic planning, and presentation development.

Work Environment & Culture:

We believe that performance and experience go hand in hand - an exceptional employee experience is earned through contribution. We are a results-driven team, grounded in our core values: ownership, authenticity, service, trust, innovation, and camaraderie.

Our culture is built for those who want to make an impact. We challenge each other to grow, celebrate progress, and support one another through shared goals and real connection. Whether you're building technology, serving clients, or supporting internal teams, you’ll be part of a company that empowers you to perform at your best and be known for results.

Compensation and Benefits:

Compensation range: $191,613 - $200,000
We invest in the whole employee - personally and professionally. Our benefits package is designed to support your well-being, growth, and success - both inside and outside of work.

Financial Wellness

• Bonus programs

• 401(k) match

• Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)

• HSA and FSA options

• Financial wellness resources and employee discount programs

Health & Well-being

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage

• Mental health support for employees and dependents through Lyra Health

• Family planning and women’s health benefits through Carrot

• Gym membership reimbursement and virtual wellness programs (including yoga)

Time Off

• 3 weeks PTO to start, with unlimited PTO after year one

Growth & Development

• Education expense reimbursement

• Leadership development programs

• Certified Payments Professional (CPP) certification support

We believe great performance starts with feeling supported - and we’ve built our benefits with that in mind

Traditional Physical Requirements:

• Requires prolonged sitting, standing, bending, stooping and stretching.

• Requires the ability to lift 10 pounds.

• Requires eye-hand coordination, manual dexterity and a normal range of hearing and vision (with or without correction).

Join our team at Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. and be part of a dynamic and innovative company that is transforming the financial technology landscape. Together, we can shape the future of payments and banking solutions while providing unmatched value to our clients.