Manager, IT - DBA

Sammons Financial Group Inc.; West Des Moines (IA); On-site; USD 94,134 - 196,111; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health coverage

ESOP

401(k) plan

Friday afternoons off

Job summary

Sammons Financial Group is seeking a hands-on Senior Database Administrator leader to guide the enterprise DBA team across on-premises and cloud platforms. You will shape architecture, drive performance, security, backup, and lifecycle management while remaining involved in complex incidents and strategic initiatives.

Responsibilities include coaching staff, recruiting talent as needed, enforcing standards, and partnering with Cybersecurity and Risk teams to ensure compliant access controls.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or Business Administration or equivalent work experience.
• Minimum 5 years leading IT planning, application development, support and/or infrastructure teams.
• Experience with enterprise databases in on-prem and cloud environments.
• Excellent leadership, communication and problem-solving skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coach a team of database administrators to set priorities and development plans.
• Remain hands-on as senior DBA and handle complex incidents, outages, and root-cause analysis.
• Own the operational health of enterprise database platforms across on-prem and cloud environments.
• Establish standards for security, backup and recovery, high availability, and monitoring.
• Drive automation for provisioning, monitoring, maintenance, and access administration.
• Collaborate with Cybersecurity, Architecture, and application teams to deliver reliable DB solutions.

Skills

Leadership

Incident response

Cloud & on-prem DBs

Azure DevOps

DB performance tuning

Security/compliance

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/IS/Business

Master's degree in CS/IS/Business

Tools

Azure DevOps

SQL Server

Oracle

Snowflake

MongoDB

Job description

What You Can Expect In This Role

Lead the enterprise Database Administration team responsible for the availability, performance, security, recoverability, and lifecycle management of Sammons Financial Group database platforms. This is a hands-on technical leadership role that develops people and operational practices while directly contributing to architecture, troubleshooting, automation, upgrades, migrations, and complex production support.

What You'll Do In This Role

• Lead, coach, develop, and retain a team of database administrators; set priorities, performance expectations, career development plans, and succession strategies, and recruit talent as needed.
• Remain hands-on as a senior database administrator and escalation point for complex incidents, performance issues, outages, and root-cause analysis, including after-hours support when required.
• Own the operational health of enterprise database platforms across on-premises and cloud environments, including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Snowflake, MongoDB, and other database technologies.
• Establish and enforce standards for database architecture, configuration, security, access control, data protection, backup and recovery, high availability, disaster recovery, monitoring, and alerting.
• Lead database upgrades, migrations, patching, platform modernization, cloud adoption, consolidation, and decommissioning with tested implementation, validation, and rollback plans.
• Direct and participate in performance tuning, capacity planning, indexing and query optimization, resilience testing, and proactive problem prevention.
• Drive automation of provisioning, monitoring, maintenance, patching, access administration, and compliance evidence to improve efficiency and reduce operational risk.
• Develop and maintain database monitoring and alerting capabilities, operational dashboards, on-call readiness, runbooks, troubleshooting guides, and support procedures.
• Use Azure DevOps (ADO) to create, prioritize, assign, and maintain work items for service requests, incidents, operational activities, projects, remediation, and technical debt; ensure estimates, actual effort or time spent, status, dependencies, decisions, and completion evidence are accurately recorded and reconciled with related Ivanti or change records as applicable.
• Lead response to database incidents and service problems, ensure timely stakeholder communication, and drive permanent corrective actions through incident, problem, and change management practices.
• Partner with Cybersecurity and Risk teams to manage role-based access, privileged and service accounts, security findings, vulnerability remediation, audit evidence, and segregation-of-duties requirements.
• Collaborate with application development, enterprise data and integration, analytics, infrastructure, cloud, architecture, and business teams to design and deliver reliable database solutions.
• Oversee database-adjacent platforms and services assigned to the team, including reporting services and ETL/ELT data-load technologies.
• Define database technology roadmaps and lifecycle plans; evaluate new capabilities and recommend investments that improve scalability, reliability, security, supportability, and cost effectiveness.
• Manage database vendors, licensing, support agreements, renewals, and professional services at the operational and project levels.
• Manage staffing, workload, budget, contractors, and offshore or nearshore resources; forecast skills and capacity required to meet operational and project commitments.
• Create, maintain, and govern clear technical and operational documentation in ADO Wiki and other approved repositories, including database inventories, ownership records, architecture diagrams, configurations, standards, runbooks, standard operating procedures, troubleshooting guidance, decision records, knowledge-transfer materials, and cross-training content.
• Develop and maintain Model Audit Rule compliant procedures for departmental processing and ensure compliance with Record Information Management requirements.
• Lead by example and promote accountability, continuous improvement, collaboration, and Sammons Financial Group Companies shared values (Accountability, Connection, Openness, Respect, and Integrity).
• As stated within the Company Attendance and Punctuality policy, regular attendance is required and expected to meet business service levels, support commitments, and workflow demands; participate in other initiatives and/or projects as necessary.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's Degree in the field of Computer Science, Information Systems, or Business Administration or equivalent work experience Preferred
• Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or Business Administration with technology as a core component or equivalent work experiences Preferred
• Minimum 5 years' applicable experience leading and/or directing a representative IT planning, application development, support and/or infrastructure organization Preferred
• Demonstrated consistent leadership effectiveness in technology planning, operations, implementation delivery and development
• Working knowledge of business processes, management, budgeting, and business office operations and end to end integration models; Must be aware of industry recognized best practices
• Knowledge of systems management, hardware platforms, enterprise software applications, and outsourced systems, vendor management, including management of offshore/near shore resources with some awareness of technology and related business trends; Experience and ability in managing systems complexity with positive outcomes
• Demonstrated, proven understanding and track record of high quality project management and execution
• Working knowledge of applicable industry laws and regulations as they relate to IT
• Established leadership track record of effective people management skills and practices
• Understands negotiating and influencing leadership skills
• Demonstrated ability to present and adapt ideas in business-friendly and user-friendly language

Other Requirements

• Due to the financial nature and level of accountability of this position, a credit and criminal background check is required - The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires Sammons Financial Group Companies to notify you that, as a routine part of processing this application for employment, Sammons Financial Group may request a consumer report on you to verify all information contained in this application. Such report may include information about work-related behaviors, performance, character, general reputation, and personal characteristics, in addition to information about your previous employment, education, credit history and criminal records

Salary Range Information

USD $94,134.00 - USD $196,111.00 /Yr. Range includes data points from multiple labor markets. Specific range is dependent on the labor market where the incumbent will be hired to perform the position. Starting salary is dependent on candidate qualifications and experience. For a narrower salary range specific to your labor market, please inquire.

What you can expect when you join Sammons Financial Group

• Comprehensive health coverage for you and your family, including Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA & FSA options, and term life insurance.
• Competitive compensation with a performance-based incentive program tied to clear goals and individual and/or company success.
• Invest in your future with our 100% company-funded Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), plus automatic enrollment in our 401(k).
• Work–life balance that means something. Friday afternoons off year-round, generous paid time off, and paid holidays.
• Commit to your growth with paid development time, tuition reimbursement, and professional development opportunities across industry, individual, and leadership programs.
• Make an impact beyond the workplace through volunteer time off, and our company nonprofit matching gift program, supporting the causes that matter most to you.
• An ownership culture that inspires; join a connected, values-driven workplace where employees take accountability, support one another, and are empowered to do their best work—together shaping our future shared success.

Work Authorization/Sponsorship

At this time, we’re not considering candidates that need any type of immigration sponsorship now or in the future or those needing work authorization for this role (This includes, but is not limited to students on F1-OPT, F1-CPT, J-1, etc.)

Additional Information

Sammons Financial Group Is An Equal Opportunity Employer
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

ADA
Sammons Financial Group is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in all aspects of the employment process. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation at any stage of the application or hiring process, including navigating our website or applying for a position, please contact [e-mail] or call 800-728-2987.

E-Verify
Sammons Financial Group participates in E-Verify and will provide the Social Security Administration and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security with information from each new employee´s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization.

Policy for External Search Firms and Agencies
Sammons Financial Group maintains an internal Talent Acquisition function and does not accept unsolicited resumes or candidate submissions from search firms, staffing agencies, or other third-party recruiting vendors. Please review our Recruitment Agency Policy for additional information here.