Senior Cloud SQL Server DBA | Hybrid & DR Expert

Carnegie Mellon University; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Tuition benefits

Generous retirement plan

Free Pittsburgh transit bus pass

Job summary

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA seeks a Senior Database Administrator to administer, secure, and optimize Microsoft SQL Server databases across on‑prem and cloud environments. You will design standards, perform backup/recovery, and support critical applications with Level‑2/3 escalation, while collaborating with cross‑functional teams in a hybrid cloud setup.

The role emphasizes security, cost management, and cloud governance, including DR testing, performance tuning, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Science, Computer Engineering, or a closely related field.
• Preferred – Master’s degree or advanced coursework in databases, cloud computing, systems, or information security.
• 3–5 years of database administration experience and 3–5 years of systems administration experience in on‑premise and public cloud vendor environments.
• Proven hands‑on experience with Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Server is required.

Responsibilities

• Install, configure, and maintain Microsoft SQL Server instances and related components across Windows and cloud platforms.
• Implement and enforce database security measures to protect data across on‑prem and cloud deployments.
• Monitor database performance, diagnose problems, and apply tuning, indexing, and query optimization to maintain application performance in both environments.
• Perform backup and recovery operations; design and test DR plans using cloud provider capabilities and on‑prem strategies.
• Maintain and enforce standards for database environments and technical documentation; ensure cloud governance, tagging, and change management procedures are followed.
• Provide Level‑2/Level‑3 escalation support and troubleshooting for production incidents and participate in an on‑call rotation as required.
• Collaborate with application and cloud/infrastructure teams to design cloud architectures, optimize database costs and performance, and support deployments.

Skills

Microsoft SQL Server

Windows Server

Cloud computing

Automation (PowerShell, Python)

Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)

Monitoring & observability

Security & compliance

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Information Science/Computer Engineering or related

Master's degree preferred

Tools

Azure SQL Database

AWS RDS/Aurora

Cosmos DB / DynamoDB

Terraform

PowerShell

Azure CLI / AWS CLI

SQL Server on Windows VMs

Job description

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA seeks a Senior Database Administrator to administer, secure, and optimize Microsoft SQL Server databases across on‑prem and cloud environments. You will design standards, perform backup/recovery, and support critical applications with Level‑2/3 escalation, while collaborating with cross‑functional teams in a hybrid cloud setup.

The role emphasizes security, cost management, and cloud governance, including DR testing, performance tuning, and