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Menlo Park, California, United States
Hybrid
We are seeking an experienced PTC Windchill Application Manager (DBA) to lead the installation, configuration, administration, and optimization of the PTC Windchill database infrastructure supporting Client's Infrastructure PLM Reboot—a Priority 1 (P1), business-critical transformation initiative.
This role will provide dedicated database architecture and application management expertise to support a rapidly growing Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) environment managing 120,000+ parts, increasing product complexity, and a diverse manufacturing ecosystem spanning multiple ODM partners.
The successful candidate will be responsible for ensuring a highly available, secure, and scalable Windchill database platform while supporting engineering operations that process 600+ Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) per month. This dedicated role enables the PLM engineering team to maintain SLA commitments for ECO processing without being diverted to database architecture and infrastructure activities.
Key Responsibilities
1. Windchill Database Administration
- Install, configure, upgrade, and administer PTC Windchill database environments.
- Design and implement scalable database architecture supporting enterprise PLM workloads.
- Configure development, QA, staging, disaster recovery, and production environments.
- Manage database storage, capacity planning, indexing, partitioning, and performance tuning.
- Implement database backup, recovery, replication, and disaster recovery strategies.
- Monitor database health, availability, and performance using enterprise monitoring tools.
- Ensure database security, access controls, encryption, and compliance with enterprise standards.
2. Infrastructure PLM Reboot Support
- Provide database leadership for Client's Infrastructure PLM Reboot program.
- Support migration and modernization of the Windchill platform.
- Optimize database performance for growing engineering data volumes and product structures.
- Collaborate with application, infrastructure, and cloud engineering teams during deployment activities.
- Support environment provisioning, migration planning, cutover, and production readiness.
- Identify and mitigate infrastructure and database risks throughout implementation.
3. Application Management & Production Support
- Own operational support for Windchill database infrastructure.
- Provide L2/L3 support for database-related incidents and production issues.
- Lead root cause analysis for database performance or availability issues.
- Manage database patching, upgrades, and release activities.
- Coordinate planned maintenance with minimal business disruption.
- Establish proactive monitoring, alerting, and preventive maintenance processes.
- Ensure SLA compliance for database availability and performance.
4. Performance & Scalability
- Optimize database performance supporting:
- 120K+ product parts
- Complex BOM structures
- Engineering documents
- Product configurations
- Manufacturing data
- Tune SQL queries, indexes, execution plans, and database parameters.
- Support increasing engineering workloads and expanding ODM ecosystem.
- Perform capacity forecasting and infrastructure scaling recommendations.
- Drive continuous performance improvements across the PLM platform.
5. Engineering Change Management Support
- Ensure database reliability supporting 600+ Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) per month.
- Maintain platform stability to enable engineering teams to meet ECO processing SLAs.
- Support engineering releases, product revisions, and configuration management activities.
- Minimize downtime during high-volume engineering change periods.
- Partner with PLM functional teams to resolve application and database performance bottlenecks.
6. Security, Compliance & Governance
- Implement database security best practices and governance standards.
- Support audit, compliance, and data retention requirements.
- Maintain database documentation, architecture diagrams, operational runbooks, and recovery procedures.
- Ensure adherence to enterprise backup, recovery, and business continuity policies.
- Participate in security assessments, vulnerability remediation, and infrastructure reviews.
7. Stakeholder & Vendor Management
- Partner with Engineering, PLM Product Owners, Infrastructure, Security, Cloud Operations, and Manufacturing teams.
- Coordinate with PTC Support and database vendors to resolve complex technical issues.
- Provide executive reporting on database health, risks, capacity, and operational metrics.
- Support architecture reviews and long-term PLM infrastructure planning.
Required Qualifications
- 10+ years of enterprise database administration experience.
- 5+ years supporting PTC Windchill environments in production.
- Strong experience installing, configuring, and administering Windchill database infrastructure.
- Expertise with Oracle Database and/or Microsoft SQL Server supporting Windchill deployments.
- Experience with database performance tuning, backup/recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery.
- Strong understanding of PLM data models, BOM structures, engineering change processes, and configuration management.
- Experience supporting large-scale engineering environments with high transaction volumes.
- Knowledge of ITIL Incident, Problem, Change, and Release Management processes.
- Excellent troubleshooting, analytical, and stakeholder management skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- PTC Windchill Administration certification.
- Experience supporting cloud-hosted or hybrid Windchill environments.
- Experience with infrastructure automation and scripting (PowerShell, Shell, Python).
- Knowledge of Linux and Windows server administration.
- Familiarity with CAD integrations, ERP integrations, and manufacturing systems.
- Experience with Kubernetes, virtualization, or containerized infrastructure is desirable.
- Oracle DBA or Microsoft SQL Server DBA certification is a plus.
Key Competencies
- PTC Windchill Administration
- Database Architecture & Administration
- Oracle / SQL Server Database Management
- PLM Infrastructure
- Engineering Change Management (ECO)
- Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
- Performance Tuning & Capacity Planning
- Backup & Disaster Recovery
- Production Support & Application Management
- High Availability & Business Continuity
- Infrastructure Modernization
- Stakeholder & Vendor Management
Success Metrics
- Maintain 99.9%+ database availability for the Windchill production platform.
- Successfully deploy and stabilize database infrastructure supporting the Infrastructure PLM Reboot.
- Sustain performance for 120K+ managed parts and increasing engineering workloads.
- Support uninterrupted processing of 600+ Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) per month.
- Meet SLAs for database performance, incident resolution, and recovery objectives.
- Deliver scalable database architecture supporting future product growth and ODM expansion.
- Reduce recurring database incidents through proactive monitoring, optimization, and automation.
- Ensure secure, compliant, and resilient database operations aligned with enterprise standards.
Business Justification
Client's Infrastructure PLM Reboot is a strategic initiative that will significantly expand the scale and complexity of the Windchill environment. With over 120,000 managed parts, rapidly increasing product complexity, and manufacturing across multiple ODMs, the database layer has become a critical component of overall platform reliability.
At the same time, the PLM organization processes more than 600 Engineering Change Orders every month, requiring the engineering team to remain focused on product lifecycle operations and SLA commitments. Assigning database architecture, installation, configuration, and infrastructure management to existing application resources would introduce unacceptable operational risk.
This dedicated PTC Windchill Application Manager (DBA) role provides the specialized expertise required to build, optimize, secure, and operate the Windchill database platform while enabling the PLM team to focus on engineering execution and business-critical product delivery.
