ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Database Administration (Azure SQL & SQL Server)
Administer and support ~30 SQL Server IaaS virtual machines hosted on Azure, including production and non-production workloads.
Manage and maintain 2 high-availability SQL Server clusters, ensuring uptime, failover readiness, and business continuity.
Administer ~20 Azure SQL PaaS logical servers hosting multiple elastic pools, including Business Critical, General Purpose, and 7 Azure SQL Managed Instances supporting enterprise workloads.
Manage and optimize Azure SQL elastic pools containing multiple Azure SQL databases per pool.
Perform routine DBA activities including
Performance tuning and query optimization
Index and statistics maintenance
Capacity planning and cost optimization
Backup, restore, and disaster recovery testing
Security configuration, access management, and compliance
High Availability, Disaster Recovery & Replication
Design, maintain, and validate high availability and disaster recovery (HA/DR) strategies across IaaS and PaaS SQL environments.
Support production and non-production replication from a monolithic source database using Attunity Replicate (Qlik).
Ensure data consistency, replication health, and timely recovery across replicated systems.
Collaborate with application, reporting, and analytics teams to meet data availability SLAs.
Monitoring, Alerting & On-Call Operations
Design, implement, and maintain comprehensive monitoring and alerting solutions across SQL platforms.
Maintain alerting via
SQL Server Agent jobs
Ability to pinpoint KPIs with SQL PI tools like Foglight.
Azure Monitor and Azure Alerts (per resource)
Develop and maintain PowerShell-based monitoring scripts running on virtual machines to:
Detect Azure resource thresholds and capacity risks
Identify performance and availability conditions
Trigger alerts for proactive issue prevention
Integrate alerting with PagerDuty for critical on-call notifications and email-based warnings for non-critical events.
Participate in on-call rotations and lead incident response, root cause analysis, and post-incident remediation.
Automation, CI/CD & Infrastructure as Code
Use Terraform to deploy, standardize, and maintain Azure SQL resources, alerting configurations, and monitoring baselines.
Maintain data platform infrastructure and pipeline deployment assets using Terraform modules (e.g., providers, variables, constraints, private endpoints, IAM patterns).
Support continuous delivery by maintaining Azure DevOps YAML pipelines for build, test, and deployment workflows.
Enforce engineering standards via repository governance practices (PR templates, pre-commit hooks, linting/validation, documentation).
Continuously improve operational efficiency through scripting, automation, and self-healing solutions.
Data Engineering & Data Platform Responsibilities
Own and maintain enterprise data platform repositories and assets spanning Azure Data Factory (ADF) pipeline definitions, Databricks job code (Python), configuration, and deployment artifacts.
Build, maintain, and support modular data pipelines across domains (e.g., bronze synchronization, backoffice processing, parity checks, cart processing, and curation).
Develop and support Python-based transformation and business-rule logic executed as Databricks jobs (including transaction processing such as items, loans, layaways, sales, purchases, and related event handling).
Maintain and extend automated unit, component, and integration test suites and associated test datasets to validate pipeline correctness and prevent regressions.
Support data quality validation and reconciliation activities (e.g., parity checks, duplicate handling, expected vs. actual output validation).
Maintain technical documentation (README files, environment setup, pipeline documentation) to support onboarding, operational readiness, and auditability.
Architecture, Governance & Modernization (Current & Future Expectations)
Develop a strong understanding of application data flows and business logic to better support production stability, data correctness, and platform evolution.
Partner with stakeholders to drive data governance initiatives, including standardization, ownership clarity, and reduction of data sprawl.
Contribute to database consolidation and redesign efforts, including analysis and planning to consolidate multiple Azure SQL databases into a governed target model to improve maintainability, performance, and cost.
Participate in design reviews, data model discussions, and migration planning to ensure consolidation is safe, scalable, and aligned with application requirements.
EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE
Required Experience
8+ years of hands-on experience as a Database Administrator with Microsoft SQL Server
5+ years of T-SQL development and performance optimization experience
3+ years of experience with database schema design, refactoring, and modernization
2+ years of experience with Azure cloud services
Demonstrated experience optimizing databases supporting high-transaction OLTP systems
Proven track record of successfully tuning poorly performing databases and queries
Experience with code review processes and mentoring development teams
Willingness to grow expertise in modern data platforms (essential)
Strong expertise in SQL Server administration (IaaS and PaaS)
Hands-on experience with
Azure SQL Database (Single, Elastic Pools)
Azure SQL Business Critical and General Purpose tiers
SQL Server Failover Clustering and/or Always On technologies
Experience with Azure infrastructure and services
Proficiency in PowerShell scripting for automation and monitoring
Monitoring and alerting experience with tools such as Foglight, Azure Monitor, and custom solutions
Preferred Experience
2+ years of data engineering or ETL/ELT development experience
Experience with Terraform and Infrastructure as Code practices
Experience implementing medallion architecture or lakehouse patterns
Hands-on experience with Databricks and Azure Data Factory
Experience with Microsoft Fabric in production environments
Background in migrating on-premises databases to cloud platforms
Experience with DevOps practices for database deployments
Experience in regulated industries with compliance requirements
Exposure to real-time data streaming (Event Hubs, Kafka)
Experience with data governance tools and frameworks
Experience with Azure DevOps CI/CD using YAML pipelines for automated testing and deployment.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, or related technical field required
Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, or related field preferred
Equivalent combination of education and experience will be considered
Professional Certifications
Highly Desirable
Microsoft Certified: Azure Database Administrator Associate
Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate
Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate or Professional
Additional Valuable Certifications
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE): Data Management and Analytics
ITIL Foundation (for change management processes)
EZCORP is an Equal Opportunity Employer
