Database Team Manager

Indra is a leading global technology and consulting company, and a trusted technological partner for the core business operations of its clients worldwide. It stands at the forefront of key sectors including Transport, Defence, Air Traffic Management and Space, alongside advanced Information Technology services delivered through Minsait, and cutting-edge capabilities in Sovereign AI, Cybersecurity, and Cyberdefence via IndraMind.

The company’s business model is built around a comprehensive portfolio of proprietary products, combining strong innovation with a high-value focus for customers.

With more than 2,500 projects implemented across 50 countries and over 100 cities, Indra is a global benchmark in innovative transportation and mobility solutions. It is recognised as one of the world’s top three companies in public transportation management systems. Indra’s technology supports the daily journeys of over 78 million people, helping to reduce more than 10 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually, and helping save nearly 3,000 lives through improved traffic management and road safety.

Indra Group is paving the way to a more secure and better-connected future through innovative solutions, trusted relationships and the very best talent. Sustainability sits at the heart of its strategy and culture, driving efforts to address current and future social and environmental challenges.

In the 2024 financial year, Indra achieved revenues of €5.5 billion, over 60,000 professionals, maintained a local presence in 46 countries, and operated across more than 140 countries worldwide.

As the technological partner for its customers’ key operations, Indra is at the core of their business, and Indra’s four values guide everything we do:

Innovation - Our capacity for innovation, cutting-edge solutions, and specialised team of professionals enables us to drive a safer, more connected future through technology.

Trust - We work with strength, commitment, and reliability, delivering quality solutions to build trust with customers, employees, partners, investors, and society.

Connection - We harness the power of collaboration, connect ideas and solutions, and adapt to our customers’ needs, supporting them on the path to a better future.

Foresight - We anticipate future needs to make the world safer and more connected, transforming our experience and knowledge into solutions for a better tomorrow.

About the Project

Transport for London (TfL) has awarded Indra a long-term contract to operate, develop, enhance and expand ticketing and access control systems across London’s transport network through to 2034, with extension options to 2039.

This programme covers the maintenance, operation and evolution of a large-scale, complex ecosystem, including turnstiles, validators, ticket machines, sales terminals, back-office systems, payment gateways, IT infrastructure and cybersecurity that supports over 8.6 million daily journeys.

Therefore, Indra will become TfL’s strategic technology partner to guarantee the operation and evolution of the world’s largest and most sophisticated ticketing system. Following a transition period of approximately two years, Indra will serve as the sole provider across the network that includes more than 8,500 buses, nearly 400 Underground stations, around 300 rail stations (Overground, DLR, Elizabeth Line and suburban services), 4,000 Oyster Card outlets, seven customer service centres, and 24 river boat boarding points.

Drawing on over 30 years of experience in urban public transport solutions, Indra will manage and evolve all aspects of the system. The project also envisages, in partnership with TfL, the implementation of new technologies to develop the system, make it more efficient and automate key processes; in short, to jointly create the next generation of the ticketing system for London.

We are seeking a Database Team Manager to lead the Mobilisation, Knowledge Transfer, Operational Readiness and Early Life Support activities associated with the transition of critical database services into the Indra/Minsait operating model.

This is a transition-focused leadership role with strong technical depth in Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database environments. The successful candidate will be responsible for building the future database support capability, coordinating knowledge acquisition from the incumbent supplier, validating operational readiness, supporting recruitment of the transition team, and ensuring that database operations can be assumed safely and sustainably.

The role will work closely with customer stakeholders, incumbent supplier SMEs, service management functions, infrastructure teams, application support teams, security representatives and programme leadership. The emphasis is on controlled mobilisation, capture and remediation of knowledge gaps, creation and validation of operational procedures, transition governance and early-life stabilisation following service takeover.

Requirements

Mobilisation and transition readiness: Lead the Database Management workstream through mobilisation, knowledge transfer, shadowing, reverse shadowing and transition readiness, translating the plan into clear activities, deliverables, dependencies, validation criteria and evidence.

• Knowledge transfer and operational readiness: Coordinate structured knowledge capture across SQL Server and Oracle estates, including backup and recovery, monitoring, alerting, maintenance, failover, escalation and operational reporting; identify gaps and drive remediation before ownership transfer.

• Operational procedures and service preparation: Review, improve and create SOPs, runbooks, support guides and knowledge articles covering incident triage, service restoration, backup validation, recovery, patching, health checks, performance, capacity and failover support.

• Governance, risk and stakeholder management: Manage database transition risks, assumptions, dependencies and blockers; support service acceptance and Go/No-Go reviews with evidence of team capability, tooling access, procedural readiness and operational control.

• Early Life Support delivery: Lead database activities during Early Life Support after cutover, acting as senior escalation for critical SQL Server and Oracle issues; monitor incident trends, alerts and residual risks, coordinate rapid resolution, capture lessons learned and embed improvements into BAU processes.

• Team capability development: Support recruitment, onboarding, assessment and mentoring of database resources, helping establish a resilient team model that reduces key-person dependency and promotes knowledge sharing across database technologies.

Essential

• Database Administration leadership or database service workstream management in complex enterprise or managed service environments.
• Strong technical knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server, Service Broker and Oracle Database administration.
• Service transition, mobilisation, operational handover, supplier transition or Early Life Support experience.
• Database readiness, knowledge transfer, service acceptance and capability validation expertise.
• Knowledge of backup/recovery, high availability, disaster recovery, patching, performance, monitoring, alerting, security and capacity management.
• ITIL-aligned Incident, Problem, Change, Configuration, Capacity and Availability Management experience.
• Strong supplier, customer, stakeholder, planning, communication and risk management skills.

Desirable

• Transport, public sector, payments, ticketing, regulated, high-availability or mission-critical experience.
• SQL Server Always On, failover clustering, Oracle RAC, Data Guard or equivalent resilience technologies.
• Database observability, automation, scripting and standardisation knowledge.
• CMDB, asset management, dependency mapping and service impact analysis experience.
• Cloud or hybrid database services, particularly Microsoft Azure or equivalent enterprise platforms.

Benefits

• Holidays: 25 days per annum + 8 days bank holidays (options to buy/sell days).
• Pension – 4% employee and 4% employer.
• Private medical insurance (including dental & optical).
• Life assurance.
• Income protection.
• Employee assistance programs.
• Flexible/remote working options.
• Charitable initiatives.
• Social events (formal & informal).
• Learning and development programs.
• Innovative & collaborative work environment.

Indra is an equal employment opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, origin, disability or other characteristics protected by law.