Senior Database Administrator (SQL Server)

Evolving Systems; India; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Evolving Systems, Inc. is hiring a senior SQL Server DBA to own the architecture and platform for mission-critical, multi-tenant databases used by mortgage lenders and financial institutions. You will lead HA/DR design, security, and governance while guiding the migration to Azure environments.

You will mentor contract DBAs, be the escalation point for incidents, and ensure production stability through December 31, 2026 with structured handover and strong collaboration with IT leadership.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of hands-on SQL Server DBA experience in mission-critical environments.
• Led Always On/WSFC deployments across production and DR.
• Experience migrating to cloud and private hosted environments.
• Strong T-SQL, performance tuning and DMVs expertise.
• Familiar with SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI or GLBA controls.
• Mentored contract DBAs and led post-incident reviews.

Responsibilities

• Own target-state SQL Server architecture including HA/DR.
• Lead database workstream for data center and cloud migrations.
• Define standards for backups, patching, and security baselines.
• Coordinate cutover plans with stakeholders and auditors.
• Drive automation via PowerShell and dbatools.

Skills

SQL Server DBA

High Availability

Azure SQL / Hybrid

Performance Tuning

T-SQL / DMVs

Security & Compliance

PowerShell automation

ITIL processes

Contract DBA leadership

Migration planning

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

SQL Server Monitoring Tools

Azure Monitor / SQL Monitor

Job description

This role is the senior authority on our Microsoft SQL Server estate. It covers mission-critical, multi-tenant production databases that serve mortgage lenders and financial institutions.

You will own the architecture of the platform, including HA/DR design, performance

standards, security controls and change governance. You will also lead the database

workstream of our migration to new hosted private-cloud and Azure environments, from

planning and rehearsals through production cutover and stabilization.

You will act as technical lead and mentor for a team of contract DBAs. You will be the final

escalation point for database incidents and the person customers, auditors and leadership

rely on database answers. The role includes a structured handover from the current

senior DBA through December 31, 2026.

Key responsibilities

Architecture and platform ownership

• Own the target-state architecture for SQL Server 2019/2025 and Azure SQL (Database, Managed Instance, SQL Server on VMs) across production, DR and non-production.
• Design, build and govern Always On Availability Groups, WSFC and log shipping; set and prove RTO/RPO for every production tier through scheduled failover and recovery drills.
• Define database standards: instance configuration, patching cadence, backup policy, index and statistics maintenance, and naming and security baselines.
• Lead capacity planning and storage forecasting; present growth and cost projections to IT leadership.

Migration leadership

• Lead the database workstream of the data center and cloud migration: inventory, dependency mapping, sequencing, runbooks and go/no-go criteria.
• Plan and run migration rehearsals, data freezes, replication and synchronization, validation and reconciliation, cutover, and rollback.
• Keep customer-facing downtime within approved maintenance windows; act as database lead on cutover bridges.

Performance engineering

• Be the escalation point for the hardest performance problems: execution plans, Query Store, wait statistics, Extended Events and DMVs.
• Work with development teams to fix ORM anti-patterns, N+1 queries, blocking chains and lock contention at the code and schema level.
• Set performance baselines and SLA-aligned alerting thresholds.

Security, compliance and governance

• Own database security design: role-based access, least privilege, auditing, TDE and encryption, and AD/Kerberos authentication.
• Approve schema migrations, deployment scripts and production changes through the

Leadership and operations

• Act as technical lead for contract DBAs: assign work, review changes and runbooks, and coach on standards.
• Serve as final escalation in the on-call rotation; lead root cause analysis and post-incident reviews for database outages.
• Drive automation of routine DBA work with PowerShell (dbatools), SQL Agent and CI/CD
• Maintain architecture documentation, runbooks and the team knowledge base.

Required skills and experience

• 10+ years of hands-on SQL Server DBA experience, including 3+ years as senior or lead DBA for mission-critical production environments (financial services strongly preferred).

installation, configuration, patching and version upgrades.

• Has designed (not only supported) Always On Availability Groups and WSFC across production and DR sites, including multi-subnet and failover testing.
• Has led at least two production database migrations of multi-terabyte or 50+ database scale, on-premises to cloud or between data centers, including cutover and rollback planning.
• Advanced T-SQL and performance tuning: execution plans, Query Store, wait statistics, Extended Events, DMVs, index design and partitioning of very large tables.
• Backup and recovery design with proven point-in-time restores and DR exercises against defined RTO/RPO.
• Windows Server administration, Active Directory and Kerberos authentication (SPNs, delegation) for SQL Server.
• Hands-on Azure SQL experience (Managed Instance and/or Azure SQL Database), including hybrid connectivity.
• PowerShell automation for DBA tasks at scale.
• Has led and mentored other DBAs, including reviewing their work and setting standards.
• Works within ITIL change, incident and problem management; comfortable presenting to customers and auditors.
• DBA tools, Redgate SQL Monitor, SolarWinds DPA, SentryOne or equivalent monitoring platforms.
• APM tools (Dynatrace, New Relic, Datadog) and correlating application traces with
• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Bicep) for database platforms.
• SSIS in a data warehousing or reporting context.
• Experience with mortgage, banking or other regulated financial data, and with SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI or GLBA controls.
• Secondary platforms such as PostgreSQL or Oracle.