Senior System Administrator: Office of Innovative Technologies - UTK

Job Description

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Microsoft SQL Server Database Administrator (DBA) to lead the design, implementation, and support of enterprise database environments supporting mission‑critical university systems. This role has a strong emphasis on High Availability, Always On Availability Groups, and cluster management supporting applications essential to university operations. This position plays a subject expert role, partnering with system administrators, developers, and vendors to ensure database platforms are secure, scalable, resilient, and optimized for performance.

• Lead strategic planning, architecture, and lifecycle management of Microsoft SQL Server environments.
• Design, implement, and maintain high availability solutions, including:
  • Always On Availability Groups
  • Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC)
  • Disaster recovery architectures across multi‑datacenter environments
• Manage SQL Server installations, upgrades, patching, and migrations.
• Monitor, tune, and optimize database performance for high-throughput applications.
• Implement and maintain database security, encryption, and compliance standards.
• Develop automation for routine DBA tasks, monitoring, and alerting.

• Lead cross‑functional projects with DBAs, developers, and application teams to deploy and upgrade critical systems.
• Support University‑wide and departmental shared database services impacting high‑availability applications.
• Provide database expertise for application performance tuning, especially for data warehousing and reporting systems.
• Collaborate with vendors and internal stakeholders to enhance application and database functionality.

• Lead implementation, integration, and patching of complex vendor applications in multi‑server and multi‑datacenter environments.
• Design and support secure application integrations using modern authentication and networking standards.
• Work with vendors to improve application features and system performance.
• Mentor system administrators and application teams on best practices.

• Education:
  
  Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field, or equivalent experience.
• Experience:
  • 5+ years of hands‑on experience administering Microsoft SQL Server in enterprise environments with Bachelor’s degree
  • Or 9 years of experience with associate’s degree
  • Or 13 years of experience with a high school diploma
• Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:
  • Expertise in high availability and disaster recovery design
  • Strong leadership and project coordination skills
  • Excellent troubleshooting and problem‑solving abilities
  • Effective communication with technical and non‑technical stakeholders
  • Ability to mentor and guide cross‑functional team

• Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:
  • Experience in higher education or large enterprise environments.
  • Knowledge of data warehousing and reporting platforms.
  • Familiarity with cloud‑based SQL solutions (Azure SQL, hybrid architectures).
  • Experience with monitoring tools (Solar Winds).
  • Microsoft certifications (Azure DBA, SQL Server certifications).

• Location:
  
  Knoxville, TN
• Hybrid

• UT market range: MR16
• Anticipated hiring range: $90,000 to $100,000
• Find more information on the UT Market Range structure here
• Find more information on UT Benefits here

To express interest, please submit an application with the following attachments:

• Resume
• Cover Letter

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States on a full‑time basis without need now or in the future for sponsorship for employment‑based visa status.