Senior SQL Database Architect & Cloud Automation Lead

The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America; Town of Bethlehem (NY); On-site; USD 99,000 - 163,000; Full time

Job summary

The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America is seeking a Senior MS SQL Database Engineer to lead the design, architecture, governance, and operational support of enterprise SQL Server environments across on-premises and cloud platforms.

You will partner with application, infrastructure, cloud engineering, security, and business stakeholders to design scalable database solutions while maintaining operational excellence.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a related field.
• 10+ years of Microsoft SQL Server administration experience.
• 5+ years of enterprise database architecture experience.
• Expert knowledge of SQL Server 2019, 2022 and 2025 Always On Availability Groups, SQL Server clustering, replication, backup and recovery, and performance tuning.
• Strong T-SQL development and query optimization skills.
• Experience with SSIS, SSRS, and SQL Server Management Studio.
• Extensive PowerShell scripting and automation experience.
• Strong knowledge of SDLC, DevOps, and Change Management processes.
• Experience supporting large-scale, business-critical database environments.
• Excellent troubleshooting and problem-solving skills.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain enterprise SQL Server architecture standards and best practices.
• Design scalable, secure, and highly available database solutions supporting critical business applications.
• Lead database modernization initiatives, including cloud adoption, migration, and platform transformation.
• Develop architecture roadmaps for SQL Server, AWS SQL, AWS RDS SQL Server, and related technologies.
• Evaluate emerging database technologies and recommend strategic investments.
• Establish standards for HA, DR, backup, recovery, monitoring, and automation.
• Review application database designs and provide guidance on data modeling, indexing strategies, scalability, and performance.
• Perform installation, configuration, patching, upgrading, and maintenance of Microsoft SQL Server environments.
• Administer SQL Server Always On Availability Groups, Failover Cluster Instances, Replication, Log Shipping, and DR solutions.
• Manage database security, auditing, encryption, and compliance requirements.
• Execute backup, recovery, refresh, migration, and upgrade activities.
• Support production, development, test, and DR environments.
• Monitor database health, capacity, availability, and performance.
• Diagnose and resolve complex database performance issues.
• Conduct SQL query tuning and optimization.
• Analyze execution plans, indexing strategies, resource utilization, and workload patterns.
• Develop proactive monitoring and automated remediation solutions.
• Perform capacity planning and growth forecasting.
• Architect and support SQL Server solutions within AWS and hybrid cloud environments.
• Lead migrations from on-premises SQL Server to AWS RDS, EC2, and cloud-native platforms.
• Develop Infrastructure-as-Code solutions utilizing Terraform and CI/CD pipelines.
• Create automation solutions using PowerShell, SQL scripts, and orchestration tools.
• Implement self-healing and operational automation capabilities.
• Serve as the technical authority for SQL Server within the organization.
• Mentor and develop junior DBAs and Database Engineers.
• Establish governance processes, architecture reviews, and technical standards.
• Participate in incident response and major outage management.
• Collaborate with application development teams on database design and deployment strategies.
• Provide technical leadership during audits, compliance reviews, and business continuity exercises.

Skills

T-SQL development

PowerShell scripting

SQL Server admin

Always On AG

Backup & restore

Security & compliance

DevOps & SDLC

Performance tuning

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field

Tools

SSIS

SSRS

SSMS

Terraform

GitHub

Bitbucket

Jenkins

Job description

The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America is seeking a Senior MS SQL Database Engineer to lead the design, architecture, governance, and operational support of enterprise SQL Server environments across on-premises and cloud platforms.

You will partner with application, infrastructure, cloud engineering, security, and business stakeholders to design scalable database solutions while maintaining operational excellence.