Position Summary
Database Administrator (DBA) with a strong Microsoft technology background, ideally within the financial services industry, to support a major enterprise technology transformation.
This individual will play a critical role in migrating the organization's existing on-premises database environment to Microsoft Azure while helping modernize and refactor the broader database and application infrastructure.
The ideal candidate will bring a combination of traditional SQL Server DBA expertise, Azure cloud database experience, and hands-on knowledge of database modernization strategies.
This is more than a traditional database administration position the DBA will help evaluate legacy environments, redesign database architectures, optimize performance, improve security, and support the transition toward a modern, scalable cloud-first environment.
Experience working in highly regulated financial environments, where data integrity, availability, security, and compliance are paramount, is desirable.
Key Responsibilities
- Administer, maintain, and optimize Microsoft SQL Server database environments across on-premises and Azure cloud infrastructure.
- Support enterprise-wide migration of legacy on-premises databases to Microsoft Azure, including assessment, planning, execution, testing, and cutover.
- Participate in database modernization and refactoring initiatives, evaluating legacy database architectures and recommending improvements.
- Support migrations to Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server running on Azure VMs.
- Identify opportunities to modernize legacy database structures, stored procedures, queries, and integrations to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities.
- Perform database performance tuning, query optimization, indexing, capacity planning, and troubleshooting.
- Develop and implement high-availability and disaster-recovery strategies, including Always On Availability Groups, replication, backup, and recovery.
- Establish database security standards, access controls, encryption, auditing, and data protection practices.
- Work closely with application developers, cloud engineers, enterprise architects, and infrastructure teams to modernize applications and underlying data platforms.
- Support database DevOps initiatives, automated deployments, version control, and infrastructure-as-code practices.
- Ensure database environments meet financial services regulatory, audit, and data governance requirements.
- Develop migration documentation, database standards, operational procedures, and performance metrics.
Required Skills & Experience
- 5+ years of hands-on SQL Server database administration experience.
- Strong experience with Microsoft SQL Server architecture, installation, configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting.
- Experience supporting enterprise database migrations from on-premises infrastructure to Microsoft Azure.
- Working knowledge of Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and Azure SQL on virtual machines.
- Strong understanding of database architecture, data modeling, normalization, indexing, and query optimization.
- Experience with T-SQL, stored procedures, triggers, functions, and complex SQL queries.
- Experience with database backup/recovery, high availability, disaster recovery, and business continuity.
- Familiarity with Azure networking, identity management, security, and monitoring.
- Experience working with application teams on database refactoring, modernization, and performance improvements.
- Strong understanding of database security, encryption, permissions, and auditing.
Preferred / Nice-to-Have Skills
- Previous experience in banking, financial services, insurance, or other highly regulated environments.
- Microsoft Azure certifications (Azure Database Administrator Associate, Azure Administrator Associate, or Azure Solutions Architect Expert).
- Experience with Azure Database Migration Service (DMS).
- Familiarity with Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Microsoft Fabric.
- Experience with PowerShell, Python, or automation scripting.
- Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
- Experience with Terraform, ARM templates, or Bicep.
- Exposure to microservices, API-driven architectures, and cloud-native application development.
- Experience migrating legacy applications and databases to modern architectures.
- Familiarity with data governance, SOX, GLBA, PCI DSS, and other financial services compliance requirements.