{"id":1957220,"url":"https://alion.io/job/dual-senior-database-platform-engineer","title":"Senior Database Platform Engineer","company":{"id":717933,"name":"DUAL","domain":"dualinsurance.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/dualinsurance","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":85,"open_postings":53,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.585,"repost_share":0.038,"time_to_fill_p50_days":28,"computed_at":"2026-10-09T06:01:00Z"}},"role":"DevOps","role_family":"DevOps","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":82000,"max_usd":161000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":10},"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Azure SQL Database","optional":false},{"name":"Bicep","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"PowerShell","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Self-Healing","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-06T13:39:58Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-06","last_verified_at":"2026-10-09T20:52:48Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":3,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":3},"description":"Who are we?\nHowden is a global insurance group with employee ownership at its heart. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mindset, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of 24,000 employees spanning over 56 countries.\nPeople join Howden for many different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. It’s what sets us apart, and the reason our employees have been turning down headhunters for years. Whatever your priorities - work / life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering - you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden.\nThe Role\nWe are looking for a Senior Database Platform Engineer to own the reliability, performance, security and evolution of our database platforms.\nThis is not a traditional ticket-driven DBA role. While you'll be responsible for keeping our SQL Server and Azure SQL estate healthy, secure and performant, you'll also helpmoderniseour data platforms and support our transition towards PostgreSQL, cloud-native database services and modernlakehousearchitectures.\nThis is a hands-on engineering role. You'll be troubleshooting performance issues, validating recovery strategies, automating operational processes, improving observability and helping shape the future of our database estate.\nYou will act as the team's database SME, working closely with Platform Engineers, Data Engineers and Operations teams to ensure critical data services remain resilient, scalable and fit for future needs.\nWhat You'll Actually Do\nDatabase Engineering & Operations (40%)\nOwn the operational health, availability and performance of SQL Server and Azure SQL platforms\n\nProvision, configure and maintain production and non-production database environments\n\nPlan and execute upgrades, patching and platform lifecycle activities\n\nDiagnose and resolve database performance issues across infrastructure, workloads and application interactions\n\nEstablish and maintain database operational standards and engineering practices\n\nManage platform capacity,utilisationand performance forecasting\n\nEnsure critical database platforms remain secure, resilient and operationally supportable\n\nResilience, Recovery & Reliability (25%)\nDesign, implement and validate backup, recovery and disaster recovery capabilities\n\nOwn restore testing and recovery readiness across critical platforms\n\nSupport high availability solutions and service resilience initiatives\n\nImplement proactive monitoring, alerting and observability for database services\n\nParticipate in incident response, problem management and post-incident reviews\n\nDrive continual improvement through automation, root cause analysis and operational learning\n\nReduce operational toil through self-healing and automation where practical\n\nDatabaseModernisation(15%)\nSupport the evolution of the database estate towards PostgreSQL and modern cloud-native database services\n\nDefine and improve database deployment, configuration and operational standards\n\nContribute to migration andmodernisationinitiatives across legacy database platforms\n\nHelp reduce technical debt through platform simplification and standardisation\n\nEvaluate new database technologies and operating models where they create business value\n\nData Platform Integration (10%)\nSupport integration between database platforms, Databricks and analytics services\n\nWork alongside Data Engineers tooptimisedata movement and workload performance\n\nContribute database expertise to modern data platform initiatives\n\nHelp ensure database services can support emerging analytics and AI workloads\n\nSecurity, Governance & Compliance (10%)\nImplement and maintain role-based access controls and database security standards\n\nSupport audit, compliance and governance activities\n\nManage database access processes and periodic reviews\n\nEnsure database services align with organisational security and operational policies\n\nProduce operational evidence and documentation where required for regulatory and audit purposes\n\nWhat We NeedFromYou\nRequired\n5+ years database engineering or DBA experience supporting production platforms\n\nStrong SQL Server expertise including administration, performance tuning, troubleshooting and optimisation\n\nExperience with Azure SQL and cloud-hosted database services\n\nHigh Availability and Disaster Recovery experience including backup, restore and recovery planning\n\nExperience managing business-critical production services\n\nStrong troubleshooting skills across database, infrastructure and application interactions\n\nMonitoring and observability experience within enterprise environments\n\nAutomation experience using PowerShell, Python or similar scripting languages\n\nStrong understanding of database security, access control and governance\n\nExperience working within structured incident, problem and change management processes\n\nStrongly Preferred\nPostgreSQL administration and engineering experience\n\nExperience supporting enterprise data warehouse environments\n\nDatabricks administration or integration experience\n\nAzure cloud platform experience\n\nInfrastructure-as-Code familiarity (Terraform or Bicep)\n\nExperience with modern monitoring and observability platforms\n\nExperience supporting cloud migration or databasemodernisationprogrammes\n\nKnowledge oflakehousearchitectures and modern analytics platforms\n\nWhat Actually Matters\nReliability mindset - you understand databases are critical infrastructure and treat them accordingly\n\nOperational excellence - prevention is always better than firefighting\n\nPragmatism over purity - you choose the right solution, not the fashionable one\n\nAutomation-first thinking - eliminate repetitive manual work wherever possible\n\nContinuous improvement - you leave systems better than you found them\n\nDocumentation discipline - knowledge should be shared, not hidden\n\nCollaboration skills - you work effectively across engineering, operations and data teams\n\nOwnership mentality - you see problems through to resolution\n\nWhat We Offer\nActual flexibility: Remote-first with occasional travel to London for planning sessions, workshops and team events. We care about outcomes, not attendance.\nReal learning budget: Support for training, certifications and conferences that improve both your expertise and our platforms.\nInteresting technical challenges: Opportunities to work across SQL Server, Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, Databricks, modern data platforms and emerging AI-enabled services.\nGrown-up engineering culture:\nAutomation is encouraged and expected\n\nTechnical decisions are driven by evidence and context\n\nDocumentation matters\n\nBlameless post-mortems when things go wrong\n\nOperational excellence is valued as highly as new feature delivery\n\nWe continuously invest in platform improvement and technical debt reduction\n\nAdd the usual stuff here: How to apply, interview process.\nWhat do we offer in return?\nA career that you define. At Howden, we value diversity - there is no one Howden type. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us:\nOur successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new\n\nWe support each other in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges\n\nWe are determined to make a positive difference at work and beyond\n\nReasonable adjustments\nWe're committed to providing reasonable accommodations at Howden to ensure that our positions align well with your needs. Besides the usual adjustments such as software, IT, and office setups, we can also accommodate other changes such as flexible hours* or hybrid working*.\nIf you're excited by this role but have some doubts about whether it’s the right fit for you, send us your application - if your profile fits the role’s criteria, we will be in touch to assist in helping to get you set up with any reasonable adjustments you may require.\n*Not all positions can accommodate changes to working hours or locations. Reach out to your Recruitment Partner if you want to know more.\nPermanent","description_format":"text","description_chars":8036,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Property & Casualty Insurance"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-06T13:39:58Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":63,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.632,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":28,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-09T06:01:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/dual-senior-database-platform-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/dual-senior-database-platform-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-10T01:05:25Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1798,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":3202,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-11T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":717933},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=717933"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fdual-senior-database-platform-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fdual-senior-database-platform-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fdual-senior-database-platform-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/dual-senior-database-platform-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fdual-senior-database-platform-engineer"}]}