Sr. SQL Server Database Admin

Job purpose
Provide lead support for the database team and operational support for the internal Microsoft SQL database infrastructure and systems in the company's 24x7 hosted environment. Provide remote and on-site support as part of the on-call support Rota. Work closely with other support teams to ensure that the database environments are fully supported and maintained in-order to meet the needs of the business. Oversee team resourcing, assign project work and provide technical leadership.

Essential Functions:
Strategic

• Ensure internal database systems are managed to the highest standard by following industry best practice.
• Demonstrate leadership, inspire team members, create a positive and collaborative work environment, and demonstrate leadership by example.
• Identify database best practices to meet internal customer requirements that maximize the performance and reliability of the database management systems.
• Recommends performance and efficiency improvements for databases systems across the organization
• Assists in the research and review of new database feature-functionality, supports proof-of-concept evaluations and enhancements to existing solutions.
• Demonstrate good problem management ownership and prevention of SLA breach under Incident / Problem Management processes.
• Actively contribute to the development of existing and new IT process and procedures to enhance service transition and service operation lifecycle stages.
• Demonstrate self-starter capabilities identifying areas of improvement and taking action in order to address.

Operational

• Provides Senior Operational Support for the Windows / SQL Server and Postgres database environment. Responsibilities include - Database monitoring, backup / restores, develop, and maintain daily automated checks/maintenance tasks, performance, and capacity management, creating optimization plans and building new database instances, applying service packs and planning/performing database migrations. Manage and escalate as appropriate.
• Provides lead support for database team, managing team assignments, mentoring and developing database administrators. Provides technical leadership and represent team on design and solutioning meetings.
• Investigate and progress Incident, Service Request and Problem tickets. Manage and escalate as appropriate.
• Monitoring, Supporting, and deploying ETL jobs and SSIS packages.
• Configuring and managing RDS instances (AWS)
• Work with internal teams (including ETL team and Quantitative Analysis Group) and external vendors to identify/propose solutions and support any fixes that are required as part of service improvement.
• Implements and maintains security policies and auditing compliance at the database level to ensure the protection of the firm's sensitive data. Develops and adheres to patch management and upgrade strategies.
• Follow the Change Management procedure and other standard practices in installing, configuring and supporting databases and relates items in Test and Production environments.
• Ensure that the BAU Service is prioritized and all faults, incidents and problems are responded to in an efficient manner without negatively impacting SLAs and reporting metrics in place.
• Upgrade or maintain software at a time when the impact to the business is minimized.
• Execute the failover for the database and application services as required. Maintain failover scripts and propose performance and efficiency improvements. Participate in regular on-site Disaster Recovery testing activities (up to 4 tests per year).
• Create, maintain, and review operational process and support documentation.
• Provide 24/7 on-call cover on a rotational shift basis. Participate in planned weekend work as required.
• As required, provide representation for DBA team's Changes at the daily stand-up and weekly CAB meetings. Ensure other team's Changes do not have an impact on the delivery of the database services.

Required Experience:

• Must have strong Operational Support experience of Microsoft SQL Server in an Enterprise Windows environment.
• Must have a solid understanding of database disaster recovery technologies including SAN / Mirroring / Always-On / SQL replication.
• Knowledge of database structure languages, such as SQL
• Experience working in AWS platform and utilizing RDS, SQL Server and Postgres.
• Operational DBA support experience on PostgresSQL.
• Must have proven leadership experience.
• Experience assigning BAU and project work to team ensuring deadlines are met.
• Ability to plan and implement technical changes without unexpected disruption to the service and with minimal oversight.
• Experience of providing production support activities for business-critical databases / applications.
• Strong documentation and technical writing skills.
• Must have excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Experience in working with ticket systems such as ServiceNow and a solid understanding of service priorities and SLA's.
• Strong experience of providing cross training on technologies and operational processes to colleagues
• Ability to collaborate effectively with other technical and business teams to support the service.
• Have excellent time management and organizational skills
• Knowledge of ITIL framework (good understanding of Incident, Problem, Change processes)

Desired

• Knowledge of Banking systems and related industry standard practices
• Experience in working and configuring monitoring systems such as Dynatrace.
• PowerShell scripting experience
• Experience with Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
• Knowledge of EMC Networker / Rubrik

Qualifications / certifications
Essential

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent
• Prior IT Operational Support experience across business-critical Production infrastructure, applications, and database services.

Desired

• Microsoft SQL 2016, 2019, 2022 certification
• AWS Certified Database —Specialty
• ITIL certification