Senior Database Administrator

The SQL DBA will provide full lifecycle production assistance to development, infrastructure, testing and ultimately production.  The SQL DBA will be managing and maintaining the SQL Server database environments across IaaS and PaaS platforms, ensure development and testing database environments are kept up to date, work on performance tuning and enhancements, troubleshooting, maintenance, health checks and investigations of production system problems, carrying out peer review and enforcing coding standards whilst being conversant in the automation approach associated in a DevOps environment.

Key Accountabilities and main responsibilities

Strategic Focus

• The SQL DBA will also be required to provide support and assistance to the wider Data Services team across alternate database technologies to support the day to day operation through BAU activities, ensuring data integrity is maintained and the best possible service available to support business processes, including the provision of out of hours on call.

Operational Management

• For the operational support and continuous improvement of the SQL estate, processes for Development and Test environments (System, Load, Performance, UAT) up to, and including Production; 
• Automation, process efficiency and appropriate tooling (Code/Branch Management and Deployment/Configurations) is utilised to reduce cycle times, and improve reliability, audit and traceability for all system deployments across multiple applications; 
• Process, best practice and database build standards are consistently applied and constantly improved upon;
• Database health checks, backups and implementation of DBA best practise. 
• Development and merging process/methodology is correctly defined and applied to software and systems to minimise risk in Production environments caused by poor code management techniques/skills;
• Ensuring that, working with DevOps, the Development Team has the right environment to maximise their efficacy and obstacles are removed and automation introduced where appropriate;  
• Production environments are protected by governance, good practice/process, design and ‘fit for purpose’ environments, to the left of Pre-Prod, supporting all project and change activity;
• Ensuring project and change release(s) are packaged to the right quality, repeatable between environments without change or modification and deployed to the target environments - ultimately to Production without detriment or issue in agreed timescales;
• Weak points in Process, Technology and Service is addressed through a culture of continual improvement;

People Leadership

• Interface with process managers and key stakeholders 

Governance & Risk

• Provide strong governance for the management, and access, of live data in environments where required (Client Data Take Up) and to ensure obfuscation technologies/practice is embedded;
• Software and processes are correctly documented to ensure single points of knowledge do not become a problem and skills are distributed across the team and department;
• Ensuring that software Deliverables/Artefacts, as part of any Change/Project, are progressed providing appropriate status reporting and updates as requested by the Line/Project/Change Manager;

Experience & Personal Attributes

• Demonstrable knowledge of database administration (design, installation & troubleshooting) of current MS SQL Server and Windows Server Enterprise platforms
• 8+ years of relevant work experience
• Comprehensive knowledge and experience of Current Microsoft SQL Server versions, IaaS and PaaS 
• Proven knowledge and experience of Database Mirroring, Log Shipping, Clustering, Availability Groups, Transactional Replication, ETL
• Database performance and optimisation experience
• Experience working with automation deployment tools.
• Ability to develop and implement data security guidelines while making data available to those authorised to have access 
• Ability to ensure the technical integrity of corporate databases by protecting against the loss or misuse of information and designing backup/recovery strategies 
• Ability to database design, implementation and performance tune
• Experience in automated testing of all database releases 
• Experience in support for all database releases.
• Experience of supporting large scale critical production databases
• Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting capabilities
• Effective communication and stakeholder management skills