Johnny Hough
Hulu
Upland,CA
24
years of professional experience
Staff-level Database Engineer with 20+ years of experience architecting and operating enterprise data platforms supporting large-scale distributed systems across AWS, Azure, and hybrid environments. Extensive background leading cloud modernization, cross-platform migrations, distributed NoSQL architectures, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), performance engineering, observability, and production reliability. Recognized for driving technical strategy, defining engineering standards, mentoring senior engineers, and delivering highly available, secure, and scalable database platforms that support mission-critical applications. Expert in PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, Cassandra, AWS Keyspaces, Kafka, cloud-native database services, and operational excellence.
Work History
Senior Database Engineer
10 Years 8 Months- Architected and implemented efficient database frameworks to optimize performance for high-volume streaming services.
- Analyzed and improved SQL query structures, resulting in faster data retrieval and enhanced operational efficiency.
- Managed comprehensive database migration efforts, prioritizing seamless transitions and the preservation of data integrity throughout the process.
- Engaged with cross-functional teams to define data requirements, leading to optimized project alignment and superior outcomes.
- Analyzed new technological trends to optimize database performance and ensure alignment with organizational growth objectives.
- Developed and enforced access control measures, backup strategies, and auditing protocols to safeguard database security.
- Formulated and implemented robust disaster recovery protocols to ensure continuity of business operations in the face of unforeseen data infrastructure challenges.
- Streamlined routine maintenance processes through the integration of automation tools, resulting in enhanced productivity.
- Streamlined documentation processes for all databases, ensuring seamless knowledge transfer and collaboration among team members and departments.
- Designed and optimized database systems, achieving project deadlines and budget goals while earning accolades for excellence in execution.
- Modernized distributed NoSQL workloads by migrating legacy database platforms to Amazon DynamoDB, optimizing partition key design, throughput provisioning, and application performance for cloud-native scalability.
- Supported migration of document-based workloads to Amazon DocumentDB, validating application compatibility, optimizing indexing strategies, and ensuring high availability within AWS-managed infrastructure.
- Automated provisioning of cloud database resources using Terraform, reducing manual configuration, improving deployment consistency, and accelerating infrastructure delivery.
- Partnered with infrastructure and platform engineering teams to build reusable Terraform modules for database services, networking, security groups, IAM roles, and storage resources.
- Standardized database infrastructure deployments through Terraform, enabling version-controlled infrastructure changes, peer reviews, and automated CI/CD workflows.
- Managed lifecycle changes to AWS infrastructure using Terraform, supporting database scaling, environment expansion, configuration updates, and disaster recovery initiatives.
- Implemented Infrastructure-as-Code best practices with Terraform, improving governance, change management, compliance, and operational consistency across production environments.
Senior Premiere SQL Database Engineer
2 Years- Led cross-functional teams in database architecture design, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and standards.
- Optimized existing database queries, improving response times and resource utilization across applications.
- Designed and implemented robust database solutions to enhance system performance and reliability.
- Developed automated scripts for data migration and transformation using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).
- Implemented security measures to protect sensitive data, ensuring compliance with industry regulations and standards.
- Collaborated on ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tasks, maintaining data integrity and verifying pipeline stability.
- Developed comprehensive security protocols to safeguard sensitive information against unauthorized access.
- Reduced operational costs with strategic consolidation of database servers, maximizing resource utilization.
- Optimized storage utilization by implementing advanced compression techniques without compromising data accessibility or performance.
- Fostered a culture of continuous improvement, leading training sessions on best practices in database management.
- Boosted data retrieval speeds with the the introduction of efficient querying techniques, supporting timely decision-making.
- Conducted regular performance tuning and troubleshooting to maintain optimal system health and uptime.
- Mentored junior engineers in best practices for database management and optimization techniques.
- Conducted regular database backups to ensure data integrity and availability in case of unexpected incidents.
- Designed and executed comprehensive test plans to validate the functionality, reliability, and performance of new databases before deployment.
- Streamlined compliance with regulatory requirements by implementing comprehensive data governance frameworks.
- Enabled data-driven decision-making by establishing robust data warehousing solutions that aggregated diverse data sources.
- Conducted regular audits to identify areas of improvement in database management practices, leading to increased efficiency.
- Reduced query execution time by analyzing and fine-tuning SQL statements in complex applications.
- Implemented proactive monitoring tools for early detection and resolution of potential database issues.
- Facilitated cross-functional collaboration by integrating database systems with other software applications, improving workflow efficiency.
- Streamlined data migration processes, enabling seamless integration of new systems without data loss.
- Served as a trusted advisor to stakeholders on matters related to database architecture, best practices, and optimization strategies.
- Boosted team productivity by introducing collaborative tools for database development and maintenance tasks.
- Enhanced scalability of database systems to accommodate business growth, planning for future expansion needs.
SQL DBA
1 Year 2 Months- Administered SQL Server databases, ensuring high availability and performance optimization.
- Implemented backup and recovery strategies, safeguarding critical data integrity and accessibility.
- Monitored database performance metrics, identifying bottlenecks and recommending enhancements.
- Developed and maintained complex queries, enhancing data retrieval efficiency for reports.
- Collaborated with development teams to design database schemas aligned with application requirements.
- Led initiatives to automate routine maintenance tasks, improving operational efficiency significantly.
- Conducted security audits of database environments, ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations.
- Maintained complex T-SQL queries, views, and stored procedures in a multi-database environment with little supervision.
- Documented analysis results and provided performance improvement feedback.
- Developed custom database objects, stored procedures, and delivered application support.
- Managed workload independently but collaborated with colleagues to complete larger scale tasks in distributed team environment.
- Analyzed business reports for prompt communication, follow-up and ongoing support.
- Supported projects enabling delivery efficiencies and technical resolution.
- Created optimal technical solutions to user needs with in-depth system analysis.
- Followed standard practices for migrating changes to test and production environments.
- Implemented system enhancements to design and develop solutions to address problem reports.
- Managed large-scale data migration projects, ensuring accurate and timely transfer of information between systems while minimizing downtime.
- Led capacity planning efforts to ensure proper allocation of resources for anticipated growth; made strategic recommendations on hardware and software upgrades based on organizational goals and budget constraints.
- Ensured high availability of databases, utilizing clustering techniques and load balancing solutions.
- Developed custom scripts for automating routine tasks such as backups, index maintenance, and performance tuning, reducing manual efforts while increasing reliability.
- Developed comprehensive documentation outlining database administration processes, making it easier for new team members to quickly acclimate to the organization''s standards and practices.
- Improved data security with consistent backups, encryption methods, and access control measures.
- Evaluated emerging technologies related to SQL Server administration; recommended strategic improvements benefiting both IT infrastructure and business objectives.
- Provided 24/7 support for critical database systems, quickly resolving any incidents that arose to minimize disruption to business operations.
- Maintained strong relationships with vendors regarding hardware/software procurement for database environments; negotiated favorable contracts providing substantial cost savings without compromising quality or performance levels.
- Successfully recovered vital data from damaged databases using specialized recovery techniques; minimized impact on business continuity plans by rapidly restoring lost information.
- Conducted thorough database audits to ensure compliance with industry best practices, maintaining data integrity, and preventing unauthorized access.
- Produced high-standard database solutions to meet stability, reliability, and performance metrics.
- Optimized database performance by conducting regular maintenance and implementing indexing strategies.
Senior SQL DBA
10 Months- Administered SQL databases, ensuring optimal performance and availability for critical business applications.
- Monitored database performance metrics, identifying and resolving issues to maintain system integrity.
- Collaborated with development teams to optimize queries, improving application efficiency and response times.
- Designed and implemented data backup and recovery strategies to safeguard critical information assets.
- Led database migration projects, ensuring seamless transitions with minimal disruption to operations.
- Developed automated scripts for routine maintenance tasks, enhancing operational efficiency and reducing downtime.
- Conducted regular audits of database systems, ensuring compliance with industry standards and internal policies.
- Designed and implemented TSQL queries for reporting and complex solution development.
- Provide recommendations for new server design, storage requirements and database design.
- Implement server wide database security settings.
- Provide code reviews and database design recommendations for development team.
- Provide production database change management support.
Senior SQL DBA
1 Year 9 Months- Provide support for SQL Server Database Servers over 100 instances, failover Clustering installation\configuring, Disaster Recovery, Replication Logshipping Mirroring, Database Optimization/Backup and Restores, Data Migration, Stored Procedure Development/Optimization.
- Developed and implemented triggers and data partitioning strategies within SSIS packages.
- Collaborated with team to redesign OLTP DB system, partitioning 5 billion row tables into multiple 100 million row segments using distributed views.
- Created database maintenance plans that performed weekly update statistics, and or rebuild\reorganized all indexes both Clustered and Non-Clustered.
- Troubleshot random production issues related to locking and blocking in the production database.
- Offloaded reports from live production databases to secondary reporting server, optimizing resource utilization on production server.
- Monitored all SQL jobs and Alerts.
- Create reports that monitor production database servers for trend analysis.
- Worked with Triggers and Data Partitioning, SSIS Package.
Lead DBA
3 Years 1 Month- Provide production support for all mission critical applications running Microsoft OS using Oracle 9i, 10G, RAC, SQL Server2000, SQL Server 2005, MySQL, and Teradata.
- Database tuning and optimization creating and maintaining statistics and indexes, creating backup and recovery standards for all database systems.
- Upgrade Teradata EDW from version 7.2 on windows to Teradata Version 12 on Linux OS.
- Upgrade existing gaming systems from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005 install and configure active-active-passive cluster configuration, ETL.
- Set up and support 3 separate environments Production, Staging, Development.
- Upgrade existing SQL Server 2000 instance that comprised of 15 databases on a standalone server to SQL Server 2005 Cluster configuration with Active/Active for fault tolerance and separated the
- · Implement backup and recovery processes for all databases.
- Implement backup and recovery processes for all databases.
- Established a Read-Only reporting server accessed by Cognos through log shipping for reporting needs.
- IImplemented and standardized all database related maintenance and naming conventions.
- Analyzed system requirements to recommend suitable hardware and software solutions.
- Also, DTS information from data warehouse into CSV file and compressing file and putting it on the customers FTP server all through batch files.
- Upgrade existing databases to SQL Server 2005.
- Create batch files and automate legacy manual processes.
- Oracle Patch implementation.
- Setup SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008 clusters in both Active, Active and Active Passive configurations.
- Upgrade Teradata EDW from version 7.2 on windows to Teradata Version 12 on Linux OS.
- Work on Oracle Upgrade from 9i to 10g.
- Monitor table spaces, backups (RMAN), archiving.
- Conducted performance tuning to optimize database efficiency and query response times.
- Installation, configuration, patching of Oracle server software and related products.
SQL DBA
4 Years 1 Month- Administered large-scale SQL Server database environments supporting millions of users and billions of transactions across highly distributed production systems.
- Optimized database architectures for high-volume social media workloads by distributing data across multiple database servers to balance load and maximize throughput.
- Managed distributed database environments supporting high-concurrency OLTP workloads, tuning indexes, queries, and storage layouts to sustain peak traffic periods.
- Managed distributed database environments for high-concurrency OLTP workloads, tuning indexes, queries, and storage layouts to sustain performance during peak traffic.
- Supported high-availability database infrastructure through replication, failover planning, backup and recovery, and proactive monitoring to maximize uptime for customer-facing applications.
- Automated operational database administration tasks, including health checks, maintenance, deployments, and monitoring, improving operational efficiency across large distributed environments.
- Implemented partitioned views and scale-out database architectures to distribute application workloads while maintaining data consistency and performance.
- Supported high-availability database infrastructure with replication, failover planning, backup and recovery, and proactive monitoring to ensure maximum uptime for customer-facing applications.
- Automated operational database administration tasks, including health checks, maintenance, deployments, and monitoring, enhancing operational efficiency in large distributed environments.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Computer And Information Sciences
Skills
Cloud Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Microsoft SQL Server
Multi-cloud architecture
Cross-region architecture
Cross-account AWS
Cloud Migrations
Hybrid cloud model
Infrastructure upgrades
AWS Data Services
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DocumentDB
AWS DMS
AWS Glue
AWS Lambda
AWS Step Functions
Amazon ECS
Amazon EC2
Amazon RDS
Amazon Aurora
Amazon Redshift
AWS Secrets Manager
AWS IAM
Amazon CloudWatch
Amazon S3
AWS Kinesis (if applicable)
Azure
Azure Data Factory
Stored Procedures
Database Administration
Performance Tuning
Data Warehousing
Databases
PostgreSQL
SQL Server
MySQL
Aurora PostgreSQL
Aurora MySQL
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DocumentDB
Database Migration
Database Optimization
High Availability
MongoDB
Cache Management
Data Querying
Data Analytics
Redshift
Distributed Systems
Distributed Database Architecture
Horizontal Scaling
Sharding
Partitioning methods
Partitioned Views
Replication
Multi-region replication
High availability
Disaster recovery
Eventual consistency model
Quorum replication
Data Distribution
Fault Tolerance
Resource Planning
Data Engineering
Data Migration
Multi-Cloud Migration
Legacy Modernization
Zero-downtime transfer
CDC (Change Data Capture)
Data Streaming
Change Management
Streaming pipelines
Data Validation
Data Integrity
ETL / ELT
Schema Evolution
Automation / DevOps
Terraform
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
GitHub Actions
Jenkins
Ansible
Configuration Management
Infrastructure Management
Python
Bash
PowerShell
Continuous Integration
Reliability Engineering
Operational Excellence
Production Operations
Database Recovery
Incident Investigation
Post-Incident Review
Standard Operating Procedures
Operational Excellence
Reliability Engineering
Capacity Management
Performance
Query Optimization
Performance Tuning
Index Optimization
Execution Plan Analysis
Database Optimization
Throughput Optimization
Cost Efficiency
Resource Utilization
Observability
Datadog
Prometheus
Grafana
CloudWatch
OpenSearch
Elastic Stack
Performance Monitoring
Alerting
Metrics
Distributed Tracing
Security
IAM
RBAC
Encryption at Rest
Encryption in Transit
TLS
Secrets Management
Database Security
Compliance
SOX
HIPAA
Leadership
Mentorship
Architecture Reviews
Best Practices
Project Planning
Cross-Functional Leadership
Technical Mentorship
Design Reviews
Executive Communication
Technical Strategy
Multi-cloud architecture
Data Transfer
Distributed Systems
Cross-account AWS
Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
Amazon DocumentDB
Amazon DynamoDB
AWS Glue
AWS Step Functions
AWS Lambda
SQL Server Data Factory
Incident Management
Postmortem Analysis
Distributed Systems
Replication
Partitioning
Change data capture
Validation frameworks
Project Roadmaps
Engineering Standards
Monitoring
Cross-Functional Leadership
Disaster recovery Planning
RTO RPO
Timeline
Senior Database Engineer
Hulu
09.2015 - 05.2026Read More
Senior Premiere SQL Database Engineer
Microsoft
09.2013 - 09.2015Read More
SQL DBA
BMS Practice Solutions
06.2012 - 08.2013Read More
Senior SQL DBA
NBC Universal Studios
08.2011 - 06.2012Read More
Senior SQL DBA
Symantec
11.2009 - 08.2011Read More
Lead DBA
Wynn Resorts
08.2006 - 09.2009Read More
SQL DBA
Myspace
07.2002 - 08.2006Read More
Devry Institute of Technology
Bachelor of Science from Computer And Information Sciences
Read More