Lead Database

Own the database and data estate end to end: assess what we have, run a time-critical upgrade as the first job, and then set the direction and standards that mature the whole environment

Our SQL Server is BYOL on EC2: we install, configure, and operate it ourselves, an on-premise setup that happens to live in AWS. MySQL runs on RDS

First 90 days

• Assess the current estate: inventory, backup and recovery posture, high availability configuration, monitoring and alerting gaps, access model, capacity, and cost.
• Produce a written state-of-the-estate and a prioritized remediation plan

Near-term priority

• 1. Upgrade the Windows Server OS hosting our production SQL Server estate — Windows Server 2016 → 2022 — across an Always On Availability Group cluster, with no data loss and minimal downtime. Must do before the end of 2026
• 2. Then upgrade the SQL Server version from our current SQL Server 2017, and own the recommendation on whether we stay self-managed on EC2 or move to AWS RDS managed SQL Server after the upgrade.

Core ownership

• Full ownership of administration, operation,s and optimization for all relational databases: SQL Server (self-managed on EC2) and MySQL (RDS)
• Performance tuning, monitoring and alerting, backup and recovery, high availability and failover, security and access management, capacity and cost

Maturing the estate

• Define and enforce database standards across the C#/.NET SQL Server and TypeScript/MySQL codebases; act as the technical authority on schema and data-access design for both engineering teams
• Own data observability: monitoring, alerting, and capacity forecasting against agreed service levels
• Establish backup and DR testing, access governan,ce and change control that stand up to SOC 2 and our cyber insurer
• Produce and maintain a data platform roadmap covering both relational stacks, Snowfl,ake and the analytics estate
• Set direction for the data engineering team on database matters

Secondary

• Snowflake administration, including usage and cost monitoring
• 3. Data warehouse and data engineering work alongside the data platform team; support internal and external analytics and BI

7+ years of professional experience

Deep and current Microsoft SQL Server administration

Hands-on experience with SQL Server installation and configuration on a self-managed server (EC2 or on-premise), including OS-level work beneath a live production instance

Experience with Windows Server administration, including OS upgrades and migrations

Recently performed SQL Server upgrade, including source and target versions, in-place or side-by-side, and the Windows Server version pairing

Experience with SQL Server high availability (Always On Availability Groups, failover clustering)

Experience with MySQL administration

Experience with AWS (EC2, RDS, S3, IAM, CloudWatch)

Proficiency with AI tools (e.g., Claude) applied to daily work

Prior end-to-end ownership of a production database estate, including assessing an inherited environment and driving it to a measurably better state

Experience setting data standards and reviewing schema and data-access design across application teams

Strong communication skills in both spoken and written English

Client: US Company | Medium (51-250 employees) - Finance Industry