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SDLA Professional Job Description

Database Programmer

A modern professional reference profile for reviewing, adapting, and strengthening this school district position.

10 populated sectionsGoverned data engineering
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Position Description

The Database Programmer designs, develops, secures, documents, and supports database applications and data exchanges that enable reliable district operations, instructional services, analytics, and reporting. The position translates business requirements into maintainable data structures, queries, integrations, automations, and quality controls while protecting student, employee, and organizational information. Working across technical and program teams, the Database Programmer helps the district move from isolated data extracts toward governed, interoperable, observable, and reusable data services.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

  • Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain relational database objects, including schemas, tables, views, stored procedures, functions, indexes, triggers, and scheduled processes.
  • Build and support data pipelines, extracts, transformations, application interfaces, and secure file exchanges serving student information, assessment, learning, finance, human resources, identity, and operational systems.
  • Translate functional requirements into technical specifications, data models, acceptance criteria, test cases, deployment plans, and support documentation.
  • Develop reliable processes for state and federal reporting, longitudinal analysis, dashboards, operational reports, and approved research or program-evaluation activities.
  • Diagnose data defects, performance problems, failed jobs, integration errors, and application incidents; identify root causes and implement durable corrections rather than recurring manual workarounds.
  • Collaborate with data owners, stewards, analysts, application administrators, vendors, and school staff to define authoritative sources, business rules, validation controls, and appropriate uses of data.
  • Review existing scripts and integrations for maintainability, security, accessibility, documentation, and continuity risk; refactor or replace fragile processes according to district priorities.
  • Participate in project planning, code review, change management, release management, disaster-recovery exercises, and vendor implementation activities.
  • Create technical documentation, data dictionaries, lineage notes, runbooks, configuration records, and knowledge-base articles sufficient for shared support and succession planning.
  • Provide consultation and technical assistance to district staff and perform other related duties consistent with the position.

Data Governance, Privacy, and Security

  • Apply district data-governance policies to database design and data movement, including ownership, stewardship, classification, retention, quality, lineage, access, and approved reuse.
  • Implement least-privilege access, role-based permissions, service-account controls, secure credential handling, encryption, logging, and auditable change practices in coordination with cybersecurity personnel.
  • Use production data only for authorized purposes and apply masking, de-identification, synthetic data, or restricted development environments when appropriate.
  • Support compliance with applicable privacy and records requirements, including FERPA and district policies, without independently providing legal conclusions.
  • Identify and promptly escalate suspected exposure, unauthorized access, integrity loss, or other security and privacy incidents according to district procedures.

Interoperability and Data Engineering

  • Develop integrations using appropriate methods such as REST APIs, web services, secure file transfer, message or event patterns, and standards-based exchanges.
  • Support common education interoperability approaches—such as Ed-Fi, OneRoster, CEDS-aligned definitions, and vendor APIs—when adopted by the district.
  • Use stable identifiers, canonical definitions, validation rules, metadata, and reconciliation controls to reduce duplicate, conflicting, and orphaned records.
  • Create automated monitoring for job completion, row-count variance, schema changes, stale data, rejected records, and other indicators of pipeline health.
  • Contribute reusable code and patterns that reduce dependence on proprietary point-to-point integrations and undocumented spreadsheets.

Programming and Technical Practices

  • Write advanced SQL and use one or more scripting or programming languages—preferably Python, and optionally R, PowerShell, JavaScript, C#, Java, or comparable tools—for automation, validation, transformation, analysis, or application support.
  • Use source control, peer review, issue tracking, repeatable environment configuration, and documented deployment procedures.
  • Develop automated and manual tests for business rules, referential integrity, regression risk, data quality, and expected performance.
  • Tune queries and database structures using execution plans, indexing strategies, statistics, workload evidence, and capacity trends.
  • Apply secure coding, dependency management, secrets management, error handling, logging, and observability practices appropriate to district systems.

Knowledge and Skills

  • Relational database concepts, normalization, dimensional and transactional modeling, SQL, query optimization, and database security.
  • ETL/ELT methods, APIs, structured data formats, scheduled workloads, error handling, and reconciliation.
  • Data quality dimensions, metadata, master/reference data, lineage, records retention, and data-governance roles.
  • Software-development lifecycle practices, source control, testing, technical documentation, and change management.
  • Clear written and oral communication with both technical and nontechnical audiences; disciplined handling of confidential information; and the ability to organize competing priorities.

Minimum Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, data science, software engineering, or a closely related field; relevant professional experience may substitute for education on a year-for-year basis where permitted by district policy.
  • Three years of progressively responsible experience developing or supporting relational databases, data integrations, reporting systems, or business applications.
  • Demonstrated experience writing SQL and using a scripting or programming language to automate or validate data processes.
  • Experience handling confidential or regulated information and following formal access, change, and incident procedures.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience in a K–12 school district, county office of education, public agency, higher education, or another highly regulated environment.
  • Experience with student information systems, CALPADS or comparable state reporting, identity platforms, assessment systems, finance/HR systems, or education data standards.
  • Experience with Python data tooling, R, cloud data platforms, orchestration tools, CI/CD practices, containers, business-intelligence platforms, or infrastructure-as-code concepts.
  • Training or certification in database administration, cloud platforms, cybersecurity, privacy, data governance, or project management.
  • Bilingual or multilingual communication skills useful to the district community.

Physical Demands and Work Environment

Work is primarily performed in an office or remote-work environment using computers and communication systems for extended periods. The employee must be able to communicate effectively, review detailed information, and occasionally move equipment or materials weighing up to 25 pounds. Incumbents may occasionally work outside normal hours for maintenance, releases, incident response, or time-sensitive reporting. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Employment and Classification Notes

  • This description identifies the general nature and level of work. It is not an exhaustive list of every duty, responsibility, qualification, or working condition.
  • The district may assign related duties and may revise the description to reflect operational needs, technology, law, policy, bargaining agreements, and organizational structure.
  • Final FLSA status, salary placement, supervision, bargaining-unit status, required clearances, and essential-function determinations must be established by the employing agency.