Senior SQL BDA

Hire Resolve; Sandton; On-site; ZAR 700,000 - 1,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Hire Resolve in Sandton, South Africa invites an experienced SQL Server DBA to own mission-critical databases across production, UAT, development and DR environments. You will focus on performance, availability, security, backups, and deep troubleshooting with developers and infrastructure teams.

This hands-on role covers HA/DR design, log shipping, partitioning, automation, and documenting runbooks to ensure resilient, secure database operations at all times.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of Microsoft SQL Server administration in enterprise environments.
• Strong T-SQL, indexing, and execution plan analysis.
• Deep HA/DR knowledge including Always On and log shipping.
• Experience with backups, restores, and point-in-time recovery; security and encryption.

Responsibilities

• Administer SQL Server databases across development, UAT, production.
• Implement and maintain HA/DR solutions and disaster readiness.
• Design and manage backup strategies and restore testing.
• Optimize performance and assist developers with queries.
• Automate routine checks with PowerShell and scripting.
• Maintain security, encryption, and key management; monitor capacity.
• Document procedures and contribute to standards.

Skills

SQL Server

Performance tuning

T-SQL scripting

HA/DR design

Backup and recovery

Security & encryption

Partitioning

Automation (PowerShell)

Monitoring & troubleshooting

Incident management/on-call

Tools

Veeam

Windows Server

Active Directory

Azure SQL/Hybrid

Job description

An well known insurance client is looking for a SQL Server DBA to join their team in Sandton, GP who can take ownership of mission critical SQL Server platforms across production, UAT, development, and disaster recovery environments. This is a hands on role focused on performance, availability, reliability, security, encryption, backup and recovery, high availability, log shipping, partitioning, automation, and deep troubleshooting with developers and infrastructure teams.

Purpose of the role

The SQL Server DBA will be responsible for the implementation, configuration, maintenance, performance, security, and availability of critical SQL Server database platforms. The successful candidate must be able to operate as an escalation point, work with developers on complex performance and application issues, maintain strong disaster recovery readiness, and ensure the database estate remains secure, recoverable, compliant, and well documented.

Responsibilities

1. SQL Server Administration and Operations

• Manage SQL Server databases through all lifecycle environments (development, UAT, production).
• Install, configure, maintain, patch, and upgrade SQL Server instances and related components.
• Configure and maintain SQL Server services, Agent jobs, maintenance plans, linked servers, operators, alerts, and database mail.
• Monitor SQL Server health, performance, capacity, availability, storage, jobs, backups, and replication.
• Investigate and resolve production incidents, service outages, performance degradation, blocking, deadlocks, and corruption risks.
• Maintain operational documentation, runbooks, inventory, and change records.
• Participate in planned maintenance windows, after-hours support, release deployments, and on‑call rotations.

2. High Availability, Disaster Recovery, and Resilience

• Design, configure, maintain, and troubleshoot HA/DR solutions (Always On Availability Groups, Failover Cluster Instances, replication, log shipping).
• Monitor and validate HA components (replicas, listeners, quorum, failover behavior, synchronization health).
• Maintain log shipping configuration, backup copy schedules, and failover readiness.
• Perform DR testing, failover validation, and recovery validation.
• Define and support RPO and RTO objectives in partnership with business and risk teams.
• Maintain documented recovery procedures for restore, failover, and rollback scenarios.
• Ensure production and DR environments remain aligned (logins, permissions, jobs, etc.).

3. Backup, Restore, Recovery, and Data Protection

• Design and maintain backup strategies (full, differential, transaction log, copy‑only).
• Maintain transaction log backup frequency and retention aligned to business requirements.
• Perform regular restore tests to validate backup integrity and recoverability.
• Troubleshoot backup/restore failures, including VSS/application‑aware backup issues.
• Work with enterprise backup platforms (e.g., Veeam) for application‑aware backups.
• Maintain restore procedures for same‑server, alternate‑server, point‑in‑time, and object‑level recovery.
• Ensure monitoring alerts clearly identify failed or missed backups.

4. Performance Tuning, Query Optimisation, and Developer Support

• Assist developers with complex query tuning, indexing strategy, and execution plan analysis.
• Troubleshoot blocking, deadlocks, wait statistics, parameter sniffing, and memory/CPU pressure.
• Use native SQL Server tools to identify performance bottlenecks and root causes.
• Review inefficient queries, missing indexes, fragmentation, and high‑cost workloads.
• Isolate issues (database, code, infrastructure, storage, network, or external dependencies).
• Support release deployments with impact assessment, rollback planning, and validation.
• Promote database design standards that improve performance and scalability.

5. Partitioning, Data Lifecycle, and Large Database Management

• Design, maintain, and troubleshoot table partitioning strategies for large/high‑growth databases.
• Implement and maintain partition functions, schemes, indexes, and staging tables.
• Automate partition management (rolling window, archive movement, compression, cleanup).
• Work with teams to define data retention, archive, and purge requirements.
• Optimize large‑table performance via partitioning, indexing, compression, and statistics.
• Monitor database growth, filegroup usage, and long‑term capacity requirements.
• Document partitioning standards and operational checks.

6. Security, Encryption, and Key Management

• Manage SQL Server authentication, authorization, roles, permissions, and least‑privilege access.
• Implement and troubleshoot Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), backup encryption, and dependencies.
• Manage certificates, asymmetric/symmetric keys, database master keys, and secure key backup.
• Maintain key management documentation (ownership, rotation, restore, recovery).
• Ensure encryption keys and certificates are protected and tested as part of DR readiness.
• Support auditing, vulnerability remediation, security reviews, and data protection requirements.
• Investigate unauthorized access, failed logins, permission issues, and encryption errors.

7. Automation, Scripting, and Operational Improvement

• Develop and maintain PowerShell/T‑SQL scripts for health checks, reporting, partition management, and validation.
• Automate recurring checks for job status, backups, blocking, HA health, and key expiry.
• Track issues and maintain repeatable support processes.
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives to reduce manual effort and improve stability.

8. Monitoring, Capacity Planning, and Operational Reporting

• Configure and maintain monitoring for SQL Server health, performance, HA/DR, and security events.
• Perform capacity planning for databases, storage, memory, CPU, tempdb, and backups.
• Maintain operational dashboards, alerts, and reports for critical services.
• Identify recurring risks and capacity pressure points before they become outages.
• Collaborate with server, VMware, SAN, backup, network, and application teams on infrastructure dependencies.

9. Cloud, Azure SQL, and Hybrid Database Services

• Support future planning for cloud‑based database platforms (Azure SQL DB, Managed Instance, SQL on Azure VMs).
• Understand Azure storage, backup, networking, private connectivity, and identity integration.
• Assist with cloud readiness assessments, migration planning, and performance comparisons.
• Troubleshoot hybrid connectivity, DNS, firewall, authentication, and performance issues.
• Work with cloud and infrastructure teams on secure, supportable architectures.

10. Documentation, Standards, and Mentorship

• Author scripts and documentation for administration, DR, architecture, and operational procedures.
• Maintain SQL Server standards for builds, backups, security, HA, and monitoring.
• Share expertise and provide mentorship to peers and junior team members.
• Cross‑train to improve broader support capability across infrastructure and database teams.

Requirements

• 10+ years of Microsoft SQL Server administration experience in enterprise/production environments.
• Strong performance tuning and optimisation using native monitoring and troubleshooting tools.
• Strong T‑SQL scripting, stored procedure, trigger, indexing, and execution plan analysis.
• Strong experience with backups, restores, recovery models, and point‑in‑time recovery.
• Deep knowledge of HA/DR: Always On Availability Groups, failover clustering, replication, log shipping.
• Hands‑on experience with SQL Server security, encryption (TDE), certificates, and key management.
• Experience with partitioning strategies and automation for large/high‑growth databases.
• Experience with Windows Server and Active Directory dependencies.
• Ability to assist developers with complex query tuning and production investigations.
• Ability to work independently, multitask, and context‑switch effectively.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred Certifications

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate (or equivalent experience).
• Microsoft SQL Server administration, performance tuning, or data platform certifications.
• Microsoft Azure Administrator or Azure Solutions‑related certification.
• ITIL Foundation.