Position Overview This role is responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing complex database environments to ensure security, integrity, and high availability. This role provides advanced support for mission-critical systems, leads performance tuning initiatives, and contributes to strategic improvements in database architecture. This role operates with minimal supervision and collaborates across teams to deliver scalable and reliable solutions.
The Senior Database Engineer at Zelis is a hands-on technical role responsible for the engineering, administration, performance, modernization, and operational reliability of enterprise database platforms across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and on-premises environments. This role supports business-critical databases with a focus on performance, availability, monitoring, incident response, backup and recovery, disaster recovery, maintenance, upgrades, migrations, and lifecycle management. A key priority is modernizing the Zelis database estate, including migrating and re-platforming applications from Microsoft SQL Server to strategic platforms such as PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. The Senior Database Engineer will work directly with application and engineering teams to assess schemas, queries, stored procedures, dependencies, and data access patterns and execute the technical work required to migrate, optimize, and operate these workloads. This position requires deep hands-on database engineering and DBA expertise, strong production troubleshooting skills, and experience with cloud database technologies, automation, monitoring, and Infrastructure as Code.
As a Senior Database Engineer at Zelis, you will be responsible for the hands-on engineering, administration, performance, modernization, and operational support of enterprise database platforms across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and on-premises environments. This role is focused on the day-to-day engineering and operation of business-critical databases, including database performance, availability, monitoring, incident response, backup and recovery, disaster recovery, maintenance, upgrades, migrations, and lifecycle management.
A primary focus of this role over the next two to three years will be the hands-on migration and re-platforming of applications away from Microsoft SQL Server where appropriate, with an emphasis on PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. You will work directly with application and engineering teams to analyze existing databases, schemas, queries, stored procedures, and data access patterns and perform the technical work required to migrate and optimize workloads on strategic database platforms.
This position requires strong hands-on DBA and database engineering skills and the ability to troubleshoot and resolve database issues in production environments. You will spend the majority of your time working directly with database platforms, SQL, automation, monitoring, Infrastructure as Code, migrations, performance tuning, and operational tooling.
Key Responsibilities
Engineer, administer, maintain, and support enterprise database platforms across AWS, Azure, and on-premises environments, including Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, Amazon RDS for SQL Server, SQL Server on Amazon EC2, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines.
Perform hands-on database performance engineering, including query tuning, execution plan analysis, schema tuning, index design and optimization, statistics maintenance and analysis, stored procedure optimization, database configuration, and analysis of application data access patterns.
Troubleshoot and resolve production database issues involving performance degradation, blocking, deadlocks, locking, resource contention, CPU, memory, storage, connectivity, capacity, availability, and database configuration.
Perform hands-on migration and re-platforming of databases and applications from Microsoft SQL Server to PostgreSQL, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, and other strategic database platforms.
Execute database migration activities including discovery, compatibility assessment, schema conversion, data migration, remediation, testing, performance validation, cutover, rollback, and post-migration optimization.
Install, configure, patch, upgrade, and maintain SQL Server and PostgreSQL database environments while ensuring database platforms remain current, supportable, secure, and compliant with established standards.
Configure, maintain, test, and troubleshoot database high availability, backup and restore, disaster recovery, replication, resiliency, and recovery capabilities.
Implement and maintain database telemetry, observability, monitoring, and alerting using IDERA, AWS-native monitoring capabilities, and other database monitoring tools.
Analyze database telemetry and performance data to proactively identify query performance problems, capacity constraints, resource contention, configuration issues, and emerging operational risks.
Participate in 24x7 production support and on-call rotations, responding to database incidents, troubleshooting problems, restoring service, performing root cause analysis, and implementing corrective actions.
Develop and maintain automation and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for database provisioning, configuration, deployment, maintenance, monitoring, patching, upgrades, and other repeatable database engineering activities.
Use Git, GitHub, CI/CD, VS Code or other IDEs, peer review, and version control to develop and maintain database scripts, SQL code, automation, Infrastructure as Code, and engineering assets.
Use AI-assisted engineering tools including ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and GitHub Copilot to assist with SQL development, troubleshooting, performance analysis, scripting, automation, migrations, and documentation.
Work directly with application engineers to identify and remediate inefficient queries, database schemas, indexes, stored procedures, data access patterns, and other application-related causes of database performance problems.
Create and maintain accurate technical documentation within Confluence, enterprise wikis, or equivalent platforms, including database configurations, operational procedures, runbooks, troubleshooting procedures, migration documentation, upgrade procedures, and disaster recovery processes.
Qualifications
Strong hands-on Microsoft SQL Server experience in business-critical production environments with demonstrated ability to independently diagnose and resolve complex database problems, including performance degradation, blocking, deadlocks, resource contention, failed jobs, availability issues, and production incidents.
Demonstrated database performance tuning expertise, including the ability to analyze execution plans, identify inefficient queries, tune T-SQL and stored procedures, design and optimize indexes, evaluate statistics and cardinality, troubleshoot locking and blocking, and identify schema or application data access patterns contributing to poor performance.
AWS experience is required, with hands-on production experience operating databases on Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora, and/or Amazon EC2. Experience with PostgreSQL and Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL is strongly preferred.
Demonstrated experience performing database migrations, upgrades, or re-platforming, including assessment, schema and compatibility analysis, data migration, testing, performance validation, cutover, rollback, and post-migration troubleshooting. Experience migrating Microsoft SQL Server workloads to PostgreSQL or Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL is strongly preferred.
Demonstrated ability to automate database engineering and operational tasks using scripting and Infrastructure as Code rather than relying primarily on manual administration. Experience with Git, GitHub, CI/CD, APIs, command-line tooling, and modern development environments such as VS Code is expected.
Hands-on experience implementing and troubleshooting database monitoring, telemetry, backup and recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery. Experience using IDERA, AWS-native observability services, or comparable database monitoring platforms is preferred.
Experience with Microsoft Azure database platforms, including Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server on Azure VMs, is preferred but not required. Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, or GitHub Copilot to improve troubleshooting, scripting, automation, and engineering productivity is also preferred.
Please note at this time we are unable to proceed with candidates who require visa sponsorship now or in the future.
Location and Workplace Flexibility
Zelis is headquartered in the U.S., with multiple locations across the country and in Hyderabad, India. Check out our locations to learn more about our offices. All employee work locations are based on the needs of the position and are determined by the Leadership team. In-office work and activities vary based on work and team objectives in accordance with Company policies.
While location expectations vary by role, candidates within approximately 50 miles of a U.S. office are generally preferred to support collaboration when needed. Our hybrid approach is flexible, and in-office presence is guided by team and business needs rather than a fixed weekly schedule.
- Base Salary Range
- $105,000.00 - $133,000.00
At Zelis we are committed to providing fair and equitable compensation packages. The base salary range allows us to make an offer that considers multiple individualized factors, including experience, education, qualifications, as well as job-related and industry-related knowledge and skills, etc. Base pay is just one part of our Total Rewards package, which may also include discretionary bonus plans, commissions, or other incentives depending on the role.
Zelis’ full-time associates are eligible for a highly competitive benefits package as well, which demonstrates our commitment to our employees’ health, well-being, and financial protection. The US-based benefits include a 401k plan with employer match, flexible paid time off, holidays, parental leaves, life and disability insurance, and health benefits including medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug coverage.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Zelis is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet 100% of the qualifications for the role. We believe in the value of diverse perspectives and experiences and are committed to building an inclusive workplace for all.
Accessibility Support
We are dedicated to ensuring our application process is accessible to all candidates. If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require a reasonable accommodation with any part of the application and/or interview process, please email TalentAcquisition@zelis.com.
Disclaimer
The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this classification. They are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of personnel so classified. All personnel may be required to perform duties outside of their normal responsibilities, duties, and skills from time to time.
