Senior SQL DBA

DistantJob; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

DistantJob is hiring a Senior SQL DBA for one of our clients, a growing US-based SaaS company serving 150+ enterprise clients on a highly customized, multi-tenant platform.

This role focuses on primary database incident response, query optimization collaboration with developers, proactive health monitoring, and automation to reduce manual tasks across client environments.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of production DBA experience, not just development.
• Strong SQL Server / T-SQL skills and execution plan analysis.
• Experience with highly customized, multi‑instance environments rather than a single standardized setup.
• Genuine interest in both reactive incident response and proactive development support.
• Azure and .NET/ORM familiarity is a plus.
• Willingness to cover US CST hours (EST considered).

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary point of contact for critical database issues during US business hours and resolve performance, reliability, and availability problems.
• Collaborate with developers to design, review, and optimize SQL queries, stored procedures, and database logic; coach on performance best practices.
• Proactively monitor database health across client environments, build alerting thresholds, runbooks, and dashboards.
• Own the database side of test-environment readiness; sync test databases, validate configuration, and automate setup to reduce manual work.
• Review and approve database-related pull requests, maintaining coding standards and evaluating changes for performance, risk, and backward compatibility.
• Perform routine database maintenance (backups, patching, capacity planning) during business hours to avoid production disruption.
• Document recurring issues, resolutions, and operational procedures for the team.

Skills

SQL Server / T-SQL

Multi‑instance environments

.NET/ORM familiarity

Reactive & proactive support

US business hours mindset

Tools

Azure

Job description

Q - What did the DBA say to the Developer?
A - It doesn't matter, he wasn't listening anyway
Q - What did the Developer say to the DBA?
A - It doesn't matter, the answer is "No".

Enough with the humor! Let's get to the point.

DistantJob is hiring a Senior SQL DBA for one of our clients, a growing US-based SaaS company serving 150+ enterprise clients on a highly customized, multi-tenant platform.

This isn't a "big data" role — the databases themselves are modest in size. The real challenge is complexity: each client runs on their own database instance, and while most of the schema and logic is standardized, a meaningful portion is customized per client. That means no two performance issues look exactly alike, and a one-size-fits-all runbook doesn't cut it here.

What you'll do:

• Serve as the primary point of contact for critical database issues during US business hours, diagnosing and resolving performance, reliability, and availability problems
• Partner with developers to design, review, and optimize SQL queries, stored procedures, and database logic — and coach the team on performance best practices
• Proactively monitor database health across client environments, building alerting thresholds, runbooks, and dashboards to catch risks before they become incidents
• Own the database side of test‑environment readiness — syncing test databases, validating configuration, and building automation to reduce manual setup work
• Review and approve database‑related pull requests, maintaining coding standards and evaluating changes for performance, risk, and backward compatibility
• Perform routine database maintenance (backups, patching, capacity planning) during business hours to avoid production disruption
• Document recurring issues, resolutions, and operational procedures for the team

What we're looking for:

• 7+ years of experience as a DBA, with real production support experience — not purely development‑side database work
• Strong SQL Server / T‑SQL skills, including query optimization and execution plan analysis
• Comfort working across highly customized, multi‑instance environments rather than a single standardized database
• Genuine interest in both reactive incident response and proactive, collaborative dev support — this role is a mix of both, and that balance is expected to shift over time as processes mature
• Azure and .NET/ORM familiarity a plus

Schedule: Primarily CST hours (EST also considered) — this role exists specifically to extend coverage into the US afternoon.

Why this role: You'll join a team that's intentional about long‑term growth for this position — not just filling a support ticket queue, but building someone into a trusted, embedded part of the development process.