5+ years of deep PostgreSQL expertise, including MVCC internals, locking mechanics, Patroni, PgBouncer, and major version upgrades. Mastery of ClickHouse, including operating large clusters, ZooKeeper/ClickHouse Keeper, sharding, replication internals, and performance diagnostics. Experience writing complex Terraform modules and Ansible roles. Programming skills in Python or Go for automation. Understanding of hybrid environments (Bare Metal vs. Kubernetes vs. Cloud) and TCO/disk subsystem optimization. Systems approach understanding security and Disaster Recovery.