MS SQL Database Platform Architect

Location: Basel, Switzerland

Contract Duration: 3 years, with possible extension

Experience

Required:

3+ years

Industry

Experience:

Utilities & Energy (Energie & Wasserversorgung or Telecommunications or Banking & Financial Services or Information Technology & Services)

We are looking for an experienced MS SQL Database Platform Architect to support a long-term enterprise project in Basel. This is a 3-year contract role with the possibility of extension.

In this strategic position, you will be the visionary brain behind our entire data platform. You will design, scale, and secure high‑availability database architectures across on‑premises, hybrid, and cloud environments. You will define global standards for data protection, performance tuning frameworks, and infrastructure migration paths, collaborating directly with IT leadership and development teams.

Strategic Scope:
Design, optimize, and secure complex distributed database systems, cross‑platform storage models, high‑volume transactional data nodes, and relational enterprise schemas.

• Sizing & Deployment Modeling:
  Define, size, and deploy database resource parameters, hardware profiles, memory buffers, and disk alignment configurations for massive transactional databases.
• Data Modeling Advisory:
  Advise internal software developers on advanced data modeling, data types, indexing strategies, constraint design, and structural schema partitioning.
• High-Availability Planning:
  Define, build, and audit database high‑availability configurations, including automated failover mirroring, replication topologies, and disaster recovery runbooks.
• Tuning & Execution Profiling:
  Diagnose slow execution blocks, optimizing complex storage procedures, nested views, deadlocks, and relational analytical queries.
• Migration & Upgrades Engineering:
  Plan, script, and execute critical database schema updates, high‑version data migrations, and database patch deployments with minimal system downtime.

• Minimum of 3 to 5+ years of hands‑on experience in Microsoft SQL Server database administration, database engineering, or enterprise database architecture.
• Strong experience with SQL Server platform sizing, deployment modelling, resource planning, memory configuration, storage design and performance‑oriented database setup.
• Good knowledge of data modelling, schema design, indexing strategies, constraints, data types, partitioning and relational database design principles.
• Experience designing, implementing and maintaining high‑availability and disaster recovery solutions, including failover, mirroring, replication, backup/restore strategies and DR runbooks.
• Strong performance tuning experience, including execution plan analysis, stored procedure optimisation, deadlock resolution, nested view tuning and complex query optimisation.
• Experience planning and executing database migrations, version upgrades, schema changes, patch deployments and production releases with minimal downtime.
• Ability to advise software development teams on database design, query performance, data integrity and scalable application‑database interaction patterns.
• Good understanding of database security, access control, operational monitoring, incident troubleshooting and enterprise change management practices.
• Ability to work independently as well as part of a distributed project team.
• Languages:
  
  Flawless bilingual/native‑level business German communications proficiency (C1/C2 level written and spoken) is required.
• Swiss Compliance:
  Must hold EU/EFTA nationality or possess an active, valid Swiss permanent residency/work card (C Permit or unrestricted B/G Permit).

• Opportunity to work on challenging projects and contribute to the growth of our company.
• Collaborative and dynamic work environment.
• Professional development and growth opportunities.
• Competitive salary and benefits package.