Sr. Database Engineer - Operations

Job Description

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Operational Support for Data Feeds

• Own day-to-day operations of job feeds and ETL processes, with a strong focus on SSIS.

• Triage and resolve operational tickets related to jobs, data anomalies, and performance enhancements in a timely and structured manner.

• Develop and maintain notification/alerting strategies within SSIS and related workflows to detect and surface failures or performance degradation.

• Collaborate with project teams to ensure new or updated feeds adhere to defined architectural and operational standards.

Data Investigation and Operational Data Updates

• Analyze existing database structures (tables, views, stored procedures) and associated business rules to understand how data flows through transactional and reporting processes.

• Design and execute targeted SQL scripts to implement business rule-driven updates when needed.

• Ensure all operational data updates are accurate, auditable, and aligned with business rules, coordinating with business and engineering stakeholders as necessary.

• Document patterns and repeatable approaches for common operational scenarios, and where possible, feed these back into process or system improvements (including opportunities for additional UI or automation where appropriate).

Database Administration & Environment Management

• Configure and manage backups and restores, including regular environment refreshes from in coordination with engineering and QA teams.

• Perform index and statistics maintenance to address fragmentation and support consistent query performance.

• Monitor and maintain database health, including capacity management, log growth, etc.

• Contribute to capacity and scalability planning for expanding data volumes and new client workloads.

Performance Tuning & Query Optimization

• Work with application and data engineering teams to review and tune T-SQL queries, stored procedures, and views for performance and efficiency.

• Analyze execution plans, identify bottlenecks, and recommend schema or index changes to improve performance.

• Provide practical guidance on SQL best practices, indexing strategies, and patterns to help reduce technical debt over time.

Data Engineering & Integration

• Develop, enhance, and support ETL processes using SSIS and/or Azure Data Factory to integrate client data into existing data structures and workflows.

• Maintain pipelines that integrate various third-party data sources as required by client solutions.

• Ensure data quality and integrity through validation, reconciliation, and appropriate error handling within ETL solutions.

• Work within existing data models and structures, providing feedback and minor adjustments as needed, but without a primary focus on full data modeling.

Monitoring, Documentation, and Continuous Improvement

• Implement and refine monitoring and alerting for SQL Server instances, SSIS jobs, and related ETL processes using existing tools and platforms.

• Produce and maintain runbooks, job documentation, and data/ETL definitions to support operational consistency and knowledge sharing.

• Identify and propose software, tooling, and process improvements to increase reliability, performance, and maintainability of data platforms.

• Participate in peer reviews for SQL and ETL changes, ensuring quality and operational readiness.

Collaboration and Support

• Serve as a subject matter expert on assigned clients/projects for data feeds, database behavior, and operational processes.

• Partner with engineering, DevOps, and client-facing teams to design solutions that balance performance, cost, and operational simplicity.

• Participate in an on-call or after-hours support rotation (as required) for critical production systems, helping ensure availability for key clients/projects.

• Perform other duties and responsibilities as assigned to support broader Data Platforms and client needs.

Background / Experience

Technical Skills

• Excellent understanding of T-SQL, including complex queries, stored procedures, functions, and views.

• 5+ years working with Microsoft SQL Server 2016 or above in a production environment.

• Hands-on experience providing operational support for SQL Server, including:

  • Backups and restores (especially environment refreshes)

  • Index and statistics maintenance

  • Disk configuration and maintenance

  • Query and workload performance tuning

• Strong experience with ETL tools, particularly SSIS building and maintaining production pipelines and job feeds.

• Proven ability to analyze existing schemas and stored procedures and design targeted SQL scripts for safe, auditable operational data updates and exception handling.

• Familiarity with Git-based source control and CI/CD tooling for database and ETL deployments.

• Experience with VB Script, C#, .NET, Azure Data Factory and Azure Cloud is a plus but not required.

Soft Skills

• Advanced problem-solving and communication skills, able to explain technical issues clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Strong team player who collaborates effectively across engineering, operations, and business teams.

• Good time-management skills, with the ability to balance reactive ticket work with proactive improvement initiatives.

• Great interpersonal skills and a service-oriented mindset when working with internal and client stakeholders.

• Sense of ownership and pride in system reliability and the impact of your work on client and company success.

• Critical thinking and problem-solving skills, especially under time pressure when resolving production issues.

Education & Certifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent experience.

• MCSA, MCSE, or MCDBA certifications are a plus.