About the Role
This role is focused on hands-on database operations and engineering in a 24x7 environment. You'll work closely with the Lead DBA and engineering, DevOps, and infrastructure teams to keep our databases fast and reliable, modernize how schema changes are delivered, and build the monitoring and automation that lets us manage problems before they affect members.
The successful candidate is a strong troubleshooter who takes ownership of problems from investigation to resolution, brings sound judgment on tradeoffs, and shares knowledge generously. As a member of a global team, you'll collaborate with U.S.-based colleagues and provide overlap coverage and on-call support as part of a follow-the-sun model.
What You'll Do
- Administer, monitor, and maintain production Azure SQL and SQL Server databases, ensuring availability, performance, and data integrity
- Perform query optimization, execution plan analysis, index tuning, and performance troubleshooting
- Partner with engineering teams to implement CI/CD pipelines for database migrations and schema changes, and review database changes for quality and risk
- Build and maintain real-time database monitoring in Datadog with actionable alerting in PagerDuty
- Implement and test backup, restore, high-availability, and disaster recovery strategies
- Support capacity planning, cost optimization, and database scaling initiatives
- Automate routine operations using scripting and infrastructure as code (Terraform, PowerShell, Python)
- Manage database security, access controls, auditing, and compliance requirements (HIPAA, HITRUST, and PCI DSS), including evidence collection to support audits
- Design, implement, and maintain static and dynamic data masking to protect sensitive data (PHI, PII, and cardholder data) across production and non-production environments
- Participate in on-call rotations and lead incident response and root cause analysis for database-related issues
- Document standards, runbooks, and operational procedures, and mentor junior DBAs and engineers
- Contribute to continuous improvement of database reliability, performance, and maintainability
What We're Looking For
- 5+ years of database administration experience in production, high-availability environments
- Strong hands-on expertise in Azure SQL and Microsoft SQL Server, including T-SQL
- Expert-level skills in query optimization, execution plan analysis, and index tuning
- Experience with CI/CD practices for database migrations and deployments
- Experience with monitoring and observability tools (Datadog preferred) and alerting platforms (PagerDuty preferred)
- Solid knowledge of disaster recovery, high availability, replication, and backup/restore strategies
- Experience with automation and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform preferred) and scripting (PowerShell or Python)
- Experience working in regulated industries or with sensitive data; knowledge of HIPAA, HITRUST, and PCI DSS requirements strongly preferred
- Hands-on experience implementing static and dynamic data masking, encryption (TDE, Always Encrypted), and least-privilege access controls
- Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with distributed teams across time zones
- Willingness to participate in on-call rotations and provide coverage aligned with U.S. business hours
Nice to Have - Experience using AI-enabled tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude, or similar) to accelerate scripting, automation, and development
- Experience with caching strategies and search indices (e.g., Redis, Elasticsearch)
- Familiarity with Databricks or other modern data platforms
- Experience with PostgreSQL or other relational databases
- Microsoft Azure certifications (e.g., Azure Database Administrator Associate)
