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 wo