Senior Database Engineer
TOPdesk builds service management software used across education, healthcare, government, and manufacturing. We are 800+ colleagues in 11 offices worldwide. Founded over 30 years ago, we serve more than 10 million users worldwide and have been helping organisations deliver better services ever since.
We are an open, collaborative organisation with little hierarchy - people own their work end to end and are trusted to make the decisions that matter. We are reinventing ITSM and ESM for the agentic era, building AI agents our customers can trust, and this role is part of that.
About the role
As our Senior Database Engineer, you move TOPdesk from a reactive, outlier-hunting posture on database performance and cost to structural, proactive management of the Azure SQL estate - balancing performance, cost efficiency, and developer enablement across our hybrid SaaS environment.
Azure SQL is a material portion of TOPdesk's hosting cost and the foundation of our customer-facing performance. Today, much of our optimisation happens when something breaks; this role gets ahead of that. Deep database performance engineering is a specialist craft, and this role brings it in-house as we decompose a long-tenured Java / MS SQL heritage platform into microservices.
What this is not: A ticket-driven, request-by-request DBA role. The mission is structural ownership of the Azure SQL estate, not break-fix.
On AI: Deep database expertise is the primary selection criterion. Familiarity with AI-assisted analysis and automation is beneficial and will be developed further in role - we are an increasingly agentic engineering organisation, and you will have the support to grow that practice.
Who you work with
You sit in the Deploy, Run & Optimize lane, reporting to the Engineering Manager for Cloud & SRE, and partner across the teams driving heritage-platform decomposition - bringing deep specialist ownership where database craft is currently spread thin.
What you'll do
Own the estate
Cost and resource optimisation. Find the inefficiencies - noisy neighbours, abusive API usage, sub-optimal allocation - that drive Azure SQL cost, and implement structural savings.
Performance engineering. Monitor query response times and execution plans structurally; own index hygiene - remove redundant indexes, add smarter ones for heavy API traffic.
Observability. Query tagging and monitoring so the business sees which services and customers drive load and cost.
Resilience and security. Own backup and restore validation and disaster-recovery testing for the SQL estate; partner with Cloud & SRE on high availability, patching and lifecycle, privileged access, and database security.
Enable engineering teams
Advise teams so they own their data solutions well and prevent data-layer debt accumulating across new microservices.
Move toward a model where domain teams keep strong control of their data with deep DBA partnership - reducing ad-hoc, externally-run production queries.
Shape the target architecture
Contribute to decisions on sharding strategies, multi-tenancy models, and event-driven decomposition to reduce database load over time.
Technical environment
Primary estate: Azure SQL (Managed Instances) and related flavours; elastic pools; multi-tenant SaaS.
Application layer: Java heritage platform being decomposed into microservices; Jooq, JPA, and custom persistence frameworks in active use.
Broader stack (context): Python, TypeScript, Vue, Postgres, Azure, Kubernetes; cloud-native / service-oriented architecture; Terraform-managed infrastructure. Your focus is Azure SQL.
Scale: 10M+ SaaS users; a complex hybrid estate with significant per-tenant variability.
Success in your first year
A documented baseline of Azure SQL cost, performance, and tenant-impact metrics - and measurable improvement against it.
An index-hygiene programme delivered, and query tagging in place with cost-per-service and cost-per-tenant attribution.
Noisy-neighbour and abusive-usage patterns identified, surfaced, and addressed at the source.
A clear contribution to target-architecture decisions, informed by the actual estate.
Engineering teams consult you during design, not only after incidents; external-consultant dependency materially reduced.
Required
At least 5 years hands-on as a Database Administrator, Database Engineer, or Performance Specialist in Microsoft SQL Server environments.
Deep, current expertise in Microsoft SQL Server, specifically Azure SQL (Managed Instances) and related flavours.
Proven performance tuning at API scale: index optimisation, execution-plan analysis, query tuning, locking and concurrency.
Strong on elastic pools, resource sharing, and noisy-neighbour management in multi-tenant SaaS.
Comfortable advising on multi-tenancy patterns and their trade-offs, and working around ORMs (Jooq, JPA, custom persistence).
Consultative communicator who can both spot the inefficiency and help ship the code-level fix alongside engineering teams.
Nice to have
Experience in an environment decomposing a long-tenured heritage platform into microservices.
A track record of reducing external-consultant dependency for database work.
Strategic input into sharding, streaming, and decomposition decisions.
Location
Delft (Netherlands) and Budapest (Hungary) - our two focus locations. Delft is TOPdesk's head office and Budapest is our largest international engineering hub. Both sit at the centre of this transformation, and we are equally happy for you to be based in either. Hybrid in both.
Kaiserslautern (Germany) - our third engineering hub. A strong option for the right candidate, on the same hybrid model.
Elsewhere in Europe considered for an exceptional candidate, with the explicit expectation of regular in-person presence at one of our hubs.
What's in it for you
A strong focus on personal development - including, in the Netherlands, our “10 to Grow” programme: 10% of your time and budget for your own growth.
A hybrid working environment built on freedom, trust, and responsibility.
An open, informal, and supportive culture, with collaboration across national borders.
Excellent employment conditions.
Want to apply?
Does this sound like your next step? Apply with your CV and a short motivation letter via the application form. We are curious about a time you turned a reactive, break-fix database situation into a structural, measured one - what you changed and what it moved.