SQL SERVER DBA

Request ID: 65510-1

Role: SQL Server DBA

Location: Atlanta, GA

Duration: 6 months

8 10 years

Role Summary

We are seeking an experienced SQL Server DBA to own the reliability, performance, security, and availability of our data platforms. The ideal candidate has deep handson expertise across Microsoft SQL Server (onprem and/or cloud), strong performance tuning skills, and productiongrade experience with HA/DR. Knowledge of PostgreSQL and familiarity with DevOps CI/CD practices for database change management will be a strong plus.

Key Responsibilities

Database Administration

Install, configure, and maintain Microsoft SQL Server instances (2016+; onprem, VMs, and/or Azure SQL).

Design and manage backup/restore strategies; regularly test recovery procedures and RPO/RTO adherence.

Implement and support HA/DR (Always On Availability Groups, Log Shipping, Replication, Failover Clustering).

Manage security & compliance (RBAC, encryption at rest/in transit, auditing, vulnerability remediation).

Oversee capacity planning, storage optimization, and licensing considerations.

Performance& Optimization

Diagnose and resolve performance issues (wait stats, query plans, I/O, memory, CPU).

Index strategy, statistics maintenance, partitioning, and query tuning (TSQL).

Baseline and monitor performance using native tools (DMVs, XE) and thirdparty APM.

Database Development & Change Management

Support development teams with schema design, stored procedures, and TSQL best practices.

Implement source control and DevOps CI/CD for database changes (e.g., Azure DevOps/GitHub Actions, DACPAC, SQL Compare/Flyway).

Enforce release management standards, migration scripts, and automated validations.

Operations & Monitoring

Set up and maintain monitoring/alerting (SQL Server Agent, Extended Events, custom dashboards).

Participate in oncall rotations and incident response; execute rootcause analysis and postmortems.

Maintain documentation (runbooks, architecture diagrams, inventory, standards).

CrossPlatform (Added Advantage)

Administer and optimize PostgreSQL (configuration, performance tuning, backups, replication).

Contribute to modernization/migration initiatives between SQL Server PostgreSQL where applicable.

Required Qualifications

8 10 years of handson DBA experience with Microsoft SQL Server in production environments.

Strong expertise in:

TSQL, indexing strategies, query plan analysis, wait statistics.

HA/DR: Always On, Log Shipping, Replication, Failover Clusters.

Backup/restore, disaster recovery testing, and business continuity planning.

Security hardening: authentication, authorization, encryption, auditing.

Performance monitoring and tuning at engine, query, and storage layers.

Experience with automation (PowerShell, TSQL jobs) and scripting for operational efficiency.

Proven track record of incident management and oncall support for missioncritical systems.

Excellent communication, documentation, and stakeholder collaboration skills.

Preferred / Added Advantage

PostgreSQL administration and performance tuning (VACUUM/ANALYZE, EXPLAIN, pg_stat_*).

DevOps CI/CD for databases:

Tools: Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins; SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT/DACPAC), Redgate, Flyway/Liquibase.

Practices: version control, automated builds, schema diffing, migration pipelines, approvals.

Cloud experience:

Azure SQL (Single DB/Elastic Pools/Managed Instance), Azure VM SQL, backups to Blob, PaaS operational nuances.

AWS RDS for SQL Server/PostgreSQL (if applicable).

ETL/BI: SSIS, SSRS, Power BI integration awareness.

Observability: PrometheGrafana, AppDynamics/Dynatrace, or similar.

Exposure to containerization (Docker) and Kubernetes for stateful workloads (where appropriate).