Senior Database Administrator

You will report directly to the Infrastructure Engineering Manager in a newly formed SME team. Providing the group Service Ops team with support and expertise on all aspects of the databases & applications.

You will constantly identify opportunities to improve our service to our customer base, so that SLAs are exceeded, and customer feedback is consistently high.

Troubleshoot data quality and consistency problems which may result in application issues.

Provide aid to colleagues across the business with any issues related to our databases and applications, including support of Development, Testing and Internal systems.

This role requires expertise across both on-premises SQL Server and Azure-hosted database services, to ensure consistent support, monitoring and resilience regardless of where a database is hosted.

Work with the Infrastructure Ops, Infrastructure Engineering and Application Ops where required, to provide input and expertise on the strategic direction of our platforms and systems.

From time to time the role will also undertake specific project activities.

Key Responsibilities

• To maintain a high level of Database and Application availability & performance. This will be done by monitoring, measuring, and improving the database schema & queries wherever possible.
• Manage the monitoring of all SQL databases and servers to ensure that we are alerted to performance issues prior to them impacting customers.
• Provide support to both Internal & External customers, assisting with the ParentPay database / data queries and related data quality and application problems.
• Undertake capacity planning to ensure that there is adequate capacity within the system to cope with long term growth plans and peak trading period.
• Work with Development to ensure that bottlenecks that might affect performance are identified and eliminated.
• Assist with the production of ad-hoc reporting for management and external customers via data extract or SRS report production.
• Ensure data security and best practices are maintained, including evidence of backup schedules, encryption, retention and restore testing.
• Introduce new tools and methodologies to improve efficiency across the estate.
• Support SQL Server instances through their lifecycle (maintain, update, migrate), on-premises and in Azure.
• Ensure incidents, tasks and changes are accurately documented and progressed in ServiceNow.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Proven experience of at least two years as a database administrator in an enterprise environment, with the ability to create and optimize SQL queries and stored procedures, using SQL Server and T-SQL
• Working knowledge of database monitoring tools across both on-premises and Azure-hosted environments.
• Working knowledge of ITSM tooling for accurate documentation and progression of incidents, tasks and changes.
• Awareness of backup/DR requirements, including encryption, retention and restore-testing practices, across on-premises and Azure-hosted databases.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills
• Experience in performing migrations/upgrades of SQL Server
• Knowledge of infrastructure (compute, storage, networks), primarily on-premises with growing exposure to Azure-hosted database services.
• Ability to take personal responsibility for training and self-development