Jr​/Production DBA

Overview

Our client in Northern NJ is seeking a Junior SQL Database Administrator to lead mission-critical data platform initiatives, ensuring high availability, compliance, and performance across enterprise systems. This role combines deep technical expertise with leadership in global collaboration and emerging AI-driven data strategies.

Candidates must be local in Northern NJ and be able to be onsite in the office 4 days a week.
This role is not eligible for employer-sponsored work authorization (e.g., H-1B, OPT, CPT, etc.) or transfer. Candidates must have valid U.S. work authorization

• Architect and administer SQL Server environments across production and non-production systems.
• Implement and maintain Always On Availability Groups (AOAG), Transactional Replication, and Mirroring.
• Design and execute data archival/removal strategies aligned with compliance and business needs.

• Tune T-SQL queries, indexing, and schema structures.
• Manage database performance using tools such as SQL Sentry, Solar Winds DPA, and Redgate Monitor.
• Develop proactive monitoring scripts and automation routines.

• Implement TDE, column-level encryption, row-level security, auditing, and access control.
• Ensure compliance with HIPAA, HITECH, SOC 2, and GDPR standards.
• Maintain secure backup, archival, and data retention practices.

• Design and execute DR strategies, including offsite replication and cross-region backups.
• Conduct disaster recovery drills and simulation exercises.
• Document and validate RTO/RPO expectations and failover procedures.
• Partner with offshore DBA and engineering teams for code reviews, standards enforcement, and training.
• Establish asynchronous communication and documentation processes.

• Support AI/ML initiatives by structuring SQL datasets for prompt generation, training, and embedding models.
• Work with RAG pipelines, vector databases, and real-time AI access requirements.
• Collaborate with AI/data scientists on ingestion, performance, and tokenization strategies.
• Support integration and migration across Postgre
  
  SQL, MySQL/Maria
  
  DB, Oracle DB, Azure SQL, and AWS RDS.
• Participate in cross-database ETL, reporting, and conversion efforts.
• Lead and mentor DBAs and developers across global teams.
• Establish documentation, training, and review protocols.
• Collaborate with Dev Ops, BI, Security, and Application teams on architecture and delivery.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field.
• minimum 2-3 years of SQL Server DBA experience (2019 or later) with production and HA environments.
• Expertise with AOAG, replication, mirroring, and performance tuning.
• Hands-on experience with monitoring tools (SQL Sentry, DPA, Redgate).
• Strong skills in data protection and security compliance (HIPAA, GDPR, etc.).
• Experience collaborating with offshore teams.

• Experience supporting AI data pipelines, RAG, embedding models, or vector databases.
• Familiarity with Postgre
  
  SQL, MySQL, or Oracle in enterprise workloads.
• Cloud experience with Azure SQL, AWS RDS, or hybrid deployments.