Senior Database Administrator

POSITION PURPOSE 

This is a mixed operational and strategic role that has evolved beyond the traditional core DBA responsibilities. In addition to owning core DBA responsibilities, the Senior DBA will help drive modernization initiatives that improve reliability, security, performance, and governance across the enterprise data platform. You will be the senior technical authority on Microsoft SQL Server — designing for scale, hardening for production, and partnering across IT to keep mission-critical systems stable and performant.  This is primarily a SQL Server role. Exposure to adjacent platforms (Azure Synapse, Microsoft Fabric, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB) is part of the broader modernization mission and is described below — deep, hands-on expertise in those platforms is preferred, not required, on day one. Works closely with data engineering, BI development, application teams, and IT infrastructure. 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES 

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. 

Core DBA Duties 

• Database installation & configuration: Deploy and configure SQL Server instances across clustered, standalone, and Azure environments. 

• Performance monitoring & tuning: Monitor SQL Server health, analyze query execution plans, optimize indexes, and troubleshoot performance bottlenecks across OLTP and analytical workloads. 

• T-SQL development & optimization: Write, review, and optimize complex queries, stored procedures, and scripts for performance and scalability. 

• Backup & recovery management: Design and maintain backup strategies (full, differential, transaction log), perform regular restore tests, and ensure compliance with RPO/RTO targets. 

• High availability & disaster recovery: Implement and maintain HA/DR solutions including Always On Availability Groups, replication, and failover clustering. 

• Security & compliance: Enforce database security standards, manage roles and permissions, implement encryption (TDE, Always Encrypted), and maintain audit readiness. 

• Job scheduling & automation: Manage SQL Agent jobs, resolve scheduling conflicts, and develop automation using PowerShell and T-SQL. 

• Capacity, patch & upgrade management: Monitor disk and compute utilization, forecast growth, apply cumulative updates and service packs, coordinate version upgrades, and validate changes in lower environments. 

• Documentation & standards: Maintain runbooks, configuration documentation, and operational standards. 

• On-call support: Provide 24/7 coverage for critical production systems, responding promptly to alerts and incidents. 

Strategic Modernization Leadership 

• Cloud and platform modernization: Lead consolidation of legacy SQL Server instances, evaluate workloads for cloud migration (Azure SQL, Managed Instance, Synapse), and optimize licensing posture. 

• Synapse and Fabric administration: Maintain Azure Synapse IAM, implement row-level security in Microsoft Fabric workspaces, and tune MPP workloads (distribution, partitioning, statistics, workload management). 

• Alerting and DR standardization: Standardize alerting and paging coverage across critical pipelines, own the enterprise backup strategy, and validate DR plans through scheduled exercises. 

• Governance partnership: Partner with the data governance team on Microsoft Purview cataloging, lineage, sensitivity labeling, and data dictionary initiatives. 

• Standards and automation: Drive connection naming standards, infrastructure-as-code adoption for database deployments, and CI/CD pipelines for schema changes. 

• Knowledge transfer and mentorship: Author DBA runbooks, enforce best practices, and lead structured knowledge-sharing sessions with data engineers and BI developers. 

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES 

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability necessary to perform this job. 

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE 

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field preferred; equivalent hands-on experience will be considered in lieu of a degree. 

• Experience: 8 years of experience as a SQL Server DBA in enterprise environments. 

• T-SQL: Expert-level T-SQL skills for query development, optimization, and troubleshooting. 

• Monitoring: Experience with monitoring tools and dashboards for observing database health, query performance, and resource utilization. 

• Upgrades & migrations: Proven ability to upgrade and migrate legacy SQL Server versions (2012/2016) to currently supported releases. 

• HA/DR and security: Hands-on expertise in HA/DR, performance tuning, and security hardening. 

• Lifecycle management: Strong knowledge of patching, upgrades, and lifecycle management. 

• Azure: Working knowledge of Azure SQL and Azure Synapse Analytics. 

• Incident tooling: Experience with incident and alerting platforms (PagerDuty, Opsgenie, or similar). 

• Leadership: Proven ability to lead cross-functional projects and communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. 

PREFERRED EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE 

• Multi-engine exposure: Hands-on experience with Amazon DynamoDB (data modeling, capacity/throughput management, application integration) and/or PostgreSQL or other relational/NoSQL platforms in production. Valuable for the platform's future direction, not required on day one. 

• Automation and DevOps: Experience with infrastructure-as-code and configuration management using Ansible and Terraform (PowerShell, SSIS, dbatools, CI/CD for databases). 

• Synapse MPP: Experience including distribution strategy, partitioning, and workload management. 

• Microsoft Fabric: Administration and row-level security implementation. 

• Monitoring platforms: Datadog alerting and dashboarding familiarity. 

• Governance: Microsoft Purview or comparable data governance experience. 

• Compliance: Knowledge of compliance frameworks and audit-readiness practices. 

LANGUAGE SKILLS 

Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, and governmental regulations. Ability to write clear reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Strong written and verbal communicator, able to explain technical database decisions — performance tradeoffs, risk, cost — in terms that resonate with both engineers and business leadership, and to present confidently to groups of managers, clients, and stakeholders. 

REASONING/PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITY 

Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists. Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form. 

DECISION MAKING 

Exercises independent judgment on database architecture, performance tuning, and DR strategy. Has authority to approve emergency changes and failover decisions during incidents; budget-impacting decisions (e.g., licensing, hardware) are made in partnership with IT leadership. 

PHYSICAL DEMANDS 

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an associate to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. 

• Mobility: Able to move about the work environment. 

• Presence: Frequently required to stand, walk, sit, talk and hear. 

• Vision: Able to focus with clear vision at 20 inches or less (computer screen). 

WORK ENVIRONMENT 

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an associate encounters while performing the essential functions of this job.