Job Summary
A major South African financial services group that provides direct-marketed insurance, investment, and value-added solutions is seeking a Senior SQL Server DBA who will be responsible for the performance, security, availability, and disaster readiness of critical SQL Server database platforms across the enterprise.Responsibilities:
Manage the full lifecycle of SQL Server instances (installations, patching, configurations, upgrades) across Dev, UAT, and production environments.
Monitor overall database health, capacity, storage, and agent jobs to proactively resolve production incidents and performance degradation.
Maintain complete operational documentation, including runbooks, inventories, and change control records.
Participate in scheduled maintenance windows, release deployments, and on-call support rotations.
Architect, configure, and maintain Always On Availability Groups, Failover Cluster Instances (FCI), log shipping, and replication.
Perform regular DR drills, failover tests, and recovery validations to meet strict Business RPO and RTO objectives.
Ensure end-to-end synchronization and alignment of DB configurations, logins, permissions, and certificates across primary and DR sites.
Design and execute enterprise backup and retention strategies (Full, Diff, Log) using native tools and third-party solutions (e.g., Veeam).
Conduct random and scheduled restore testing to validate point-in-time recovery capabilities and backup integrity.
Proactively monitor backup health and rapidly resolve VSS, storage, or job failures.
Collaborate with developers to review execution plans, optimize T-SQL code, refine indexes, and tune stored procedures.
Identify and eliminate bottlenecks related to blocking, deadlocks, wait stats, tempdb pressure, memory/CPU constraints, and parameter sniffing.
Enforce database design standards that maximize scalability, maintainability, and code efficiency.
Design, automate, and maintain table partitioning strategies (partition functions, schemes, aligned indexes, and switching) for high-growth data.
Manage data lifecycles by defining retention, compression, archiving, and purging workflows in partnership with business stakeholders.
Enforce strict RBAC, least-privilege access, and authentication mechanisms aligned with financial regulatory requirements.
Manage Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), backup encryption, SSL/TLS certificates, and master key lifecycle management.
Lead database auditing, vulnerability remediation, security reviews, and evidence gathering for compliance audits.
Develop PowerShell and T-SQL scripts to automate recurring health checks, capacity reporting, maintenance tasks, and job monitoring.
Streamline manual administrative workloads to drive operational consistency and platform stability.
Support future cloud readiness by assessing, migrating, and optimizing workloads for Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and Azure VMs.
Troubleshoot hybrid database environments, including private networking, connectivity, and identity integrations.
Establish and enforce enterprise SQL Server standards for deployments, backups, security, and HA/DR.
Mentor junior team members and transfer technical knowledge to elevate overall infrastructure capability.
Minimum Requirements:
10+ years of dedicated Microsoft SQL Server administration experience in enterprise production environments.
Deep Technical Expertise: Expert knowledge of T-SQL, execution plan analysis, index strategies, and native troubleshooting tools.
HA/DR Mastery: Proven experience designing and managing Always On AGs, Failover Clusters, log shipping, and replication.
Security & Encryption: Hands-on experience with TDE, certificate/key management, RBAC, and security hardening.
Large Database Support: Practical experience with partitioning, archiving, and managing high-growth tables.
Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to act as an escalation point for developers and leadership.
Preferred Certifications
Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate (or equivalent SQL Server legacy certification).
Relevant Azure Administrator / Azure Solutions Architect certifications.
ITIL Foundation.
Nice to Have
Domain Experience: Background in financial services, insurance, or highly regulated environments.
Cloud & Hybrid: Direct experience with Azure SQL ecosystem (Managed Instance, IaaS, DB) and hybrid networking.
Tools & Scripting: Strong PowerShell automation skills and experience with enterprise backup software (e.g., Veeam).
Infrastructure Knowledge: Understanding of SAN storage, VMware virtualization, Active Directory, and Windows Server internals.
Benefits:
Competitive salary based on experience (salary can potentially be more based on experience/skills)
IF you meet the above requirements and want to make a career-changing move, apply today by emailing your CV to itcareers@hireresolve.za.com
About
Specialists in Civil, Structural, Mechanical Engineering, Information Technology, Mining, Manufacturing and Finance Careers! Hire Resolve is one of the larger and more agile South African recruitment companies that focus on placing professionals and skilled people in permanent employment and contract employment. We prefer and focus on working with top quality professionals and candidates in South Africa and Africa. Hire Resolve has successfully placed Engineering, Mining, IT, Manufacturing and Finance professionals with top firms across the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal, Gauteng and in Africa. Hire Resolve has assisted candidates to find jobs at over 100 JSE listed companies of which many are global companies with offices and operations in South Africa and Africa. It is for this reason that we are well respected in the industries we operate in and in the recruitment industry.
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