Team Lead MS SQL Engineer

Tracker South Africa; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology firm in Johannesburg is searching for a Team Leader: Microsoft SQL. This role involves managing a technical team and ensuring the reliability of SQL infrastructure and cloud services. Ideal candidates will have extensive experience in SQL management and team leadership. The position requires a Bachelor's degree in IT, SQL certifications, and significant previous experience. Join this dynamic environment where you will make a substantial impact.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent IT qualification required.
• 2 years experience managing a technical team.
• 5 years experience as a System and Cloud Administrator.
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate.
• Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate.
• ITIL and CobIT knowledge.
• 5 years as System and Cloud Administrator.
• 2 years managing people in a technical environment.
• 2 years on-call rotations for 24/7 operations.

Responsibilities

• Manage the enterprise SQL engineering team for performance.
• Ensure high availability and 24/7 stability of services.
• Oversee database performance tuning and monitoring.
• Works with development leaders and vendors to ensure service levels.
• Handles incident/problem resolution and root cause analysis.
• Communicates status to stakeholders and ensures issues are closed.
• Collaborates with DevOps, BI, Cloud, Security teams to deliver data solutions.
• Ensures production databases replicate to DR and oversees upgrades.

Skills

Team management

SQL Server expertise

Cloud infrastructure management

Risk assessment

Technical oversight

Production support

Automation

24/7 operations

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent IT qualification

Certifications in SQL Server or Azure Data

Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate

CobIT

Tools

SQL Server

PostgreSQL

Microsoft Azure

DevOps collaboration

Job description

Job category: Network Administration and Security

Location: Johannesburg

Contract: Permanent

Remuneration: Market Related

EE position: No

Introduction

As Team Leader: Microsoft SQL, you will accomplish results through the management of experienced professionals and you will integrate subject matter and industry expertise within the areas of Server Software, MS SQL and Cloud Infrastructure Management. We are seeking a technically strong person with experience managing a team. Ideally, you will have mentored and managed a small Software and Cloud team in the past, and you have passion for production support of technology. This is a dynamic, highly diverse team, and we are passionate about embodying a culture of positivity.Provide management and guidance to the cloud engineering and operations staff, focus on the implementation of new and enhanced services across Tracker’s various locations, and ensure high availability and quick resolution of the services delivered. This position has responsibility for all support aspects of Tracker's SQL Infrastructure, including integration with development teams and leaders, 3rd party providers, and managing the SQL team. Maintaining, close liaison with various operational, project, development, vendor and product teams, ensuring ongoing service and support can be maintained to defined service levels. This team works in an environment that operates 24/7.

• Manages enterprise SQL engineering team, recruiting, and mentoring the members of the team, both technically and for career growth
• Provides technical oversight across systems and architectures, with an emphasis on reliability, architecture, and automation
• Helps to drive the vision for the future of the SQL at Tracker and reliability of applications and services running in the Cloud and on premises.
• Provides a holistic view of the production environment for both technology and business management, working closely as a trusted partner with development team leaders
• Performs controlled resolution of incidents and problems including prioritization and escalation to relevant groups when appropriate, root cause analysis of all problems with follow-through to resolution
• Communicates status to development teams, ensuring outstanding issues are tracked to closure, both for remediation and long-term resolution
• Consults with the primary stakeholders of the application in conjunction with development leaders and technical leads to better understand the objectives of the development teams
• Requires awareness of audit and compliance related issues
• Contributes to formulation of strategies for network growth and stability
• Champion initiatives to enable high availability for Business-As-Usual which includes monitoring, failover and resiliency
• Ability to handle incidents, problems and change at a global enterprise level
• Responsible for delivery of results which directly impacts the development teams

Servers (on-premise and cloud)

• Management of servers
• Oversee database performance tuning, indexing strategies, and query optimization across environments
• Ensure that user access to SQL is managed and limited
• Ensure that server data is backed-up as agreed with the appropriate business owner
• Ensure that servers are monitored for performance and uptime
• Architect and maintain scalable, secure, and high-performing relational databases (SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or equivalent)
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (DevOps, BI, Cloud, Security) to deliver data-driven solutions
• Monitor and troubleshoot production database issues, ensuring 24/7 stability and availability
• Ensure all critical business databases are replicated at DR
• Manage software upgrades when licensing provides an upgrade path

Security

• Third Party access policy
• Perform regular risk assessments
• Address risks identified by risk assessments
• Manage the various device and system logs
• Create and / or regularly update the procedures for data encryption
• Create and / or regularly update the procedures for use of external storage medium
• Create and / or regularly update the procedures for information exchange with external entities
• Create and / or regularly update the policy and procedures for user access, permitted operations and monitoring of operations

Operating Systems

• Ensure all OSs are licensed
• Ensure all OSs are on required patch level
• Ensure all OSs comply with business standards and are IT approved
• Ensure all OSs are monitored by the Network Operator team
• Manage the upgrade of operating systems to newer versions if required

Capacity Planning

• Create and / or regularly update a capacity management process and procedure
• Regular review of capacity management monitoring results
• Implementation of appropriate actions to address findings of capacity management monitoring

Qualifications

• A Bachelor\'s degree or Equivalent IT Qualification or Diploma
• Certifications in SQL Server, Azure Data Engineer, or equivalent
• Mandatory Microsoft Training and Certifications
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate
• Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate
• Experience and product specific training as it relates to the role and technologies in use
• ITIL
• CobIT
• 2 years of experience managing people in a technical environment
• 2 years experience in participating in on-call rotations, and providing after-hours support in an environment that operates 24/7
• 5 years of experience as a System and Cloud Administrator (experience in Microsoft license management)