Senior SQL Server DBA

Hire Resolve; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Hire Resolve is seeking a highly experienced Senior SQL Server DBA to own mission-critical SQL Server platforms across production, UAT, development and disaster recovery environments in Johannesburg. This hands-on role focuses on performance, high availability, security, backup and automation to keep environments stable and recoverable.

The successful candidate will work closely with developers and infrastructure teams, providing technical guidance and mentoring to junior members, while managing

Qualifications

• 10+ years of Microsoft SQL Server administration in enterprise environments.
• Strong experience with SQL Server performance tuning and optimisation.
• Advanced T-SQL skills including stored procedures, triggers, indexing and execution plans.
• Experience with HA/DR solutions such as Always On and Failover Clustering.
• Experience with backups, restores and point-in-time recovery.
• Ability to work with developers and infrastructure teams; strong problem-solving.

Responsibilities

• Administer, configure, maintain, patch and upgrade SQL Server environments.
• Monitor health, performance, capacity, backups and growth.
• Troubleshoot production incidents including blocking and deadlocks.
• Design and maintain HA/DR solutions.
• Manage Always On, Failover Clustering, Replication and Log Shipping.
• Develop robust backup, restore and PITR strategies.
• Perform DR testing and capacity planning.
• Assist developers with query tuning, indexing and execution plans.

Skills

SQL Server administration

Performance tuning

T-SQL expertise

Backups & recovery

HA/DR

Always On / Clustering / Replication /

Security & encryption (TDE)

Certificates & key management

Partitioning / large databases

Windows Server / Active Directory

Troubleshooting

Communication & collaboration

Tools

PowerShell

Job description

A leading organisation is looking for a highly experienced Senior SQL Server DBA to take ownership of mission-critical SQL Server platforms across production, UAT, development and disaster recovery environments.

This is a hands-on role focused on database performance, high availability, disaster recovery, security, encryption, backup and recovery, automation and advanced troubleshooting. The successful candidate will work closely with developers and infrastructure teams to ensure critical database environments remain stable, secure, performant and recoverable.

Key Responsibilities

• Administer, configure, maintain, patch and upgrade SQL Server environments.
• Monitor SQL Server health, performance, capacity, availability, jobs, backups and database growth.
• Troubleshoot production incidents including blocking, deadlocks, failed jobs, performance degradation and database issues.
• Design, maintain and troubleshoot High Availability and Disaster Recovery solutions.
• Manage Always On Availability Groups, Failover Clustering, Replication and Log Shipping.
• Develop and maintain robust backup, restore and point-in-time recovery strategies.
• Perform regular restore and disaster recovery testing.
• Conduct advanced SQL Server performance tuning and query optimisation.
• Assist developers with query tuning, indexing, execution plans, stored procedures and schema refinement.
• Manage partitioning strategies for large and high-growth databases.
• Implement and maintain SQL Server security, permissions, encryption, TDE, certificates and key management.
• Develop T-SQL and PowerShell scripts to automate database administration and monitoring processes.
• Perform capacity planning and monitor database, storage and infrastructure growth.
• Support Azure SQL and hybrid database environments where required.
• Maintain technical documentation, operational procedures and database standards.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior team members.

Requirements

• 10+ years’ experience in Microsoft SQL Server administration within enterprise or production environments.
• Strong SQL Server performance tuning and optimisation experience.
• Advanced T-SQL skills, including stored procedures, triggers, indexing and execution plans.
• Strong experience with backups, restores, recovery models and point-in-time recovery.
• Extensive SQL Server HA/DR experience.
• Hands-on experience with Always On, Failover Clustering, Replication and Log Shipping.
• Strong knowledge of SQL Server security, permissions, encryption and TDE.
• Experience with certificates, encryption keys and key management.
• Experience with SQL Server partitioning and large databases.
• Experience working with Windows Server and Active Directory dependencies.
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving abilities.
• Ability to work closely with developers and infrastructure teams.
• Ability to work independently and manage multiple priorities in a production environment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Advantageous Experience

• Financial services, insurance or another regulated environment.
• Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance or SQL Server on Azure VMs.
• Veeam or other enterprise backup platforms.
• PowerShell automation.
• SAN-backed SQL Server platforms.
• VMware-hosted SQL Server environments.
• SQL Server auditing, vulnerability remediation and compliance.
• Knowledge of PostgreSQL, MySQL or other database technologies.
• Experience with change, incident and problem management.