Álvaro
Data Scientist
“In a climate this uncertain, Shakers gives you a layer of reassurance and confidence. What I like most, without a doubt, is the flexibility and getting to work on top-tier projects.”
Join ShakersShakers for expert talent
Work as a PostgreSQL DBA expert
Projects where the open engine is yours: which query gets tuned, which window gets used and who answers when the instance hesitates.
The trade reads in two places: the career-guidance card and the job ad asking for weekly on-call shifts without saying so. Neither tells you how to run a real company's critical database project by project. Here is that.
- Higher-paying projects
- More continuity between projects
- Greater recognition for your experience
+3,000
Tech projects published on Shakers
+90
Tech, Product and Data specialisms are part of Shakers
6 months
Average length of a project with Shakers
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Amelia
AI Agent Developer
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Luz
Backend Developer & Data Engineer
“Shakers adds a lot of value because it connects you with sharper projects, already filtered and better defined. It saves you a big part of the upfront work of understanding the client, quoting and weighing up whether it is worth it, and that means that as a contractor you can go far more directly to the opportunities that genuinely fit you.”
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Rubén
Software Developer
“Life as a contractor has a lot going on and it is not always easy. We like to focus on what we are good at, but you also have to manage clients, invoicing and go looking for work. For me, Shakers has been key because it does that prospecting for me, it gives the client confidence from the very first moment, and it lets us be part of a community with real enthusiasm.”
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Alejandro
AI Developer
“Shakers was key to getting my company off the ground: it gave me the flexibility to keep contracting while I built my next chapter. Without Shakers, I would have had to raise funding or push the project back.”
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Toño
Product Designer
“With Shakers I have landed recurring projects that give me peace of mind and room to grow professionally. It is not just about reaching quality clients: it is feeling that you have a network behind you, one that connects you with real opportunities and helps you move forward as a freelancer.”
Join ShakersWhat a DBA decides on every single project
A PostgreSQL DBA administers the open-source engine in production: tuning performance with execution plans and indexing, scheduling backup and recovery, configuring replication and high availability, and deciding schema migration windows.
They are the specialist of one engine under the database administration umbrella: PostgreSQL only here. The demand is embedded in skills: PostgreSQL appears in 1,593 live UK tech vacancies, 2.3x more than MongoDB.
You decide what gets backed up and how often, which index gets touched and in which window, which permission is granted and which withdrawn. You also decide what the database refuses: a deployment without a rollback plan doesn't go in. The engine belongs to the client; the policy that keeps it alive is yours.
PostgreSQLpsqlpgAdminEXPLAINindexingreplicationhigh availabilitypgBackRestvacuummigrationsPatroniconnections
Verified backupTuningHigh availabilityPermissionsMonitoringRecovery
Free to join, no hidden fees
How Shakers works for talent
Create your profile
Tell us who you are, what you can do, the projects you want to work on and what your availability and rate are.
Get your certification
We certify your experience and your use of AI so companies understand and trust what you bring.
Match with projects
We connect you with well-paid projects that fit your expertise and your preferences.
Data and Analytics projects that live up to your expectations
Work on real projects, with teams that need your expertise, without wasting time looking for opportunities.
Projects that fit you
Work with companies that need your stack and experience to take their projects to production.
Opportunities that come to you
Our AI matching connects your profile with the projects that fit your preferences.
You build. Shakers handles the rest
Set your own terms based on your seniority. We manage contracts, payments and paperwork.
What a DBA delivers on a Shakers project
The brief arrives with the engine
Shakers is hiring infrastructure: the project arrives with the instances and their criticality, not a list of technologies.
A plan you can audit
You deliver the backup plan with tested restores, active monitoring and the why of every maintenance window.
What happens when the base fails
You set the on-call protocol, what happens when an instance stops answering and who answers for the data while it recovers.
Databases held, not described
Having run engines in production and being able to tell an outage story: what failed, what you did and what changed so it never repeated.
Engine, specialist or umbrella
Recognising when the brief belongs to your engine and when it asks for a specialist: PostgreSQL and MongoDB have their own page, and saying so.
How far your brief goes
You run the engine; you don't rewrite the application or the infrastructure. If the project asks for development, you say so at kickoff.
Frequently asked questions
Any other questions? Write to us and we will reply.
What is the difference between a PostgreSQL DBA and a generalist DBA?
The generalist runs several engines with reasonable depth; the PostgreSQL DBA lives the engine: its execution plans, its replication, its migrations. For pure PostgreSQL, the specialist.
Is it hard to work as a database administrator?
The tool is learned; responsibility is not. The critical database allows no trial and error: what the certification measures is backup, performance and security judgement on real deliveries.
How long does the engine diagnosis take?
With engine access and the incident history, the diagnosis with execution plans and recommendations arrives in days. High availability is configured in phases.
How much does a freelance database administrator earn?
You invoice per project, and scope sets the band: number of instances, criticality and whether there are on-call shifts. You agree the budget before accepting.
Can PostgreSQL administration be done remotely?
Almost all of it: the engine runs in the cloud or an accessible data centre and on-call happens remotely. Only some physical maintenance asks for presence.
How do I join Shakers as a database administrator?
Create your profile, pass the certification process and join the collective: only 4 percent make it. Then you choose which administration projects to work on.
The day to day of the trade
The execution plan nobody read, the vacuum postponed for a quarter and the replication that exists but nobody tested. The trade is learned holding real engines, not manuals.
The UK territory: migration and support
The real conversation in English isn't the engine but the service: leaving Oracle, ongoing support and post-migration aftercare. PostgreSQL appears in 1,593 live UK tech vacancies, according to Shakers' market analysis (n=39,811, September 2026), embedded in skills.
Specialist, not generalist
General database administration exists as an umbrella, and your certification is per engine: every delivery delimits what you ran and how deep. The boundary is declared in your profile.
The bar is calm
Friday's deployment, the on-call shift the day the instance doesn't answer and the backup that restores without drama: the bar is the administrator's calm.
Roles that cross a database project
Four roles from the collective cross your path on a database project, from the engine specialist to the one automating the cloud.
Database Administrator
The umbrella of the trade: when your brief touches SQL Server, Oracle or MySQL alongside the open engine, that's the general page.
MongoDB DBA
The collective's NoSQL specialist: when data doesn't fit tables, the page administering MongoDB and its scale.
Backend Developer
Their applications write to your engine: schemas and queries your administration sustains, with their deployment windows.
AWS DevOps Engineer
The infrastructure the engine runs on: snapshots, networks and the cloud cost carrying the instance.
The boundaries between these roles are agreed on each project: the title does not set them.
Take the next step with Shakers
Want projects where the database is yours?
Pass Shakers' certification and choose which administration projects to join.
