Senior Database Engineer / Specialist

Sabenza IT & Recruitment; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,600,000; Full time

Job summary

Sabenza IT & Recruitment in Cape Town seeks a Senior Database Specialist to join an enterprise technology environment focused on database architecture, performance optimisation, automation and ecosystem integration. core duties include building automated database builds, monitoring capabilities and enterprise database solutions to support security, scalability and efficiency.

The candidate will contribute to firmwide strategies, drive DBaaS patterns across infrastructure, and enhance monitoring,

Qualifications

• Experience with database architecture, performance optimisation and enterprise database environments.
• Strong hands-on SQL and PL/SQL experience.
• Unix Shell scripting experience.
• Python and/or Perl for database automation.
• Experience developing automated database builds.
• Experience with database monitoring, availability, capacity and health metrics.
• Strong understanding of query optimisation, indexing and execution plans.
• Experience identifying workload bottlenecks and performance issues.
• Experience with database security and enterprise standards.
• Understanding of source code control, modular programming and software release management.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Define and contribute to firmwide database strategies and technology roadmaps.
• Design and implement DBaaS patterns across physical and virtualised infrastructure.
• Develop database build standards, automation and build support.
• Drive database ecosystem integration across tooling, monitoring and security.
• Develop and maintain database security engineering standards.
• Develop and enhance automated database builds using Unix Shell, Perl, Python, SQL and PL/SQL.
• Develop and implement monitoring and control centre solutions covering availability, utilisation, capacity trends and overall database health.
• Design and implement database solutions aligned to existing enterprise architecture.
• Analyse database workloads and performance to identify bottlenecks and optimisation opportunities.
• Define safe concurrency limits and recommended scaling strategies.
• Analyse controlled load test results and workload versus performance.
• Identify and optimise high-impact queries, including query rewrites, indexing and execution plans.
• Eliminate inefficient polling patterns and improve processing architecture.
• Develop optimal data retention strategies and reduce database footprint and growth risk.
• Develop and implement database performance optimisation plans.
• Support balanced workload distribution across the database environment.

Skills

Database architecture

SQL & PL/SQL

Unix Shell scripting

Python / Perl

Automation

Monitoring & availability metrics

Query optimization

Security standards

Enterprise architectures

Communication skills

Job description

Cape Town, South Africa | Posted on 14/08/2026

We are looking for a Senior Database Specialist to join an enterprise technology environment, with a strong focus on database architecture, performance optimisation, automation and database ecosystem integration.

The successful candidate will play a key role in developing and enhancing automated database builds, monitoring capabilities and enterprise database solutions, while supporting performance, security, scalability and operational efficiency.

Requirements

Key Responsibilities

• Define and contribute to firmwide database strategies and technology roadmaps .
  
• Design and implement DBaaS patterns across physical and virtualised infrastructure.
  
• Develop database build standards, automation and build support .
  
• Drive database ecosystem integration across tooling, monitoring and security.
  
• Develop and maintain database security engineering standards .
  
• Develop and enhance automated database builds using Unix Shell, Perl, Python, SQL and PL/SQL .
  
• Develop and implement monitoring and control centre solutions covering availability, utilisation, capacity trends and overall database health.
  
• Design and implement database solutions aligned to existing enterprise architecture.
  
• Analyse database workloads and performance to identify bottlenecks and optimisation opportunities.
  
• Define safe concurrency limits and recommended scaling strategies.
  
• Analyse controlled load test results and workload versus performance.
  
• Identify and optimise high-impact queries, including query rewrites, indexing and execution plans.
  
• Eliminate inefficient polling patterns and improve processing architecture.
  
• Develop optimal data retention strategies and reduce database footprint and growth risk.
  
• Develop and implement database performance optimisation plans.
  
• Support balanced workload distribution across the database environment.
  

Required Experience & Skills

• Experience with database architecture, performance optimisation and enterprise database environments .
  
• Strong hands-on SQL and PL/SQL experience.
  
• Experience with Unix Shell scripting .
  
• Experience with Python and/or Perl for database automation.
  
• Experience developing/enhancing automated database builds .
  
• Experience with database monitoring, availability, capacity and health metrics .
  
• Strong understanding of query optimisation, indexing and execution plans .
  
• Experience identifying workload bottlenecks and performance issues .
  
• Experience with database security and enterprise standards .
  
• Understanding of source code control, modular programming and software release management .
  
• Strong analytical, problem-solving and communication skills.
  

Ideal Candidate

A technically strong database specialist who can operate across database architecture, automation, performance engineering, monitoring and optimisation , while communicating effectively with senior management, business stakeholders and wider technical teams.