Sr. Database Administrator - Computing Services

The Computing Services central IT department provides services that have a strategic impact on university goals. We make service decisions based on interaction and valuable input from colleagues engaged in the education, research, and administration efforts of the university. We are a learning organization and approach successes and mistakes as a learning experience to continually cultivate a culture of intelligent risk taking.

We want to hire versatile team members who are inspired and passionate about their work. Join us and be part of a team committed to excellence, innovation, diversity, team and individual growth.

The Senior Database Administrator is responsible for administering, securing, and optimizing Microsoft SQL Server databases running in a Windows ecosystem and across public cloud platforms. This role installs, configures, maintains, patches, and tunes databases and the underlying Windows and cloud infrastructure that support them; designs and enforces standards; performs backup and recovery and disaster-recovery planning and testing; provides Level-2/Level-3 escalation support for critical partner and internal applications;

and designs and operates cloud and hybrid application architectures and database platforms. The Senior DBA collaborates with application developers, cloud and infrastructure engineers, storage, and network teams to ensure reliable, performant, secure, and cost-effective data platforms.

Your core responsibilities will include:

• Install, configure, and maintain Microsoft SQL Server instances and related components across Windows and cloud platforms.
• Implement and enforce database security measures to protect data across on-prem and cloud deployments, including encryption, access controls, and cloud IAM integrations.
• Monitor database performance, diagnose problems, and apply tuning, indexing, and query optimization to maintain application performance in both environments.
• Perform backup and recovery operations; design and test DR plans using cloud provider capabilities (snapshots, managed backups, cross-region replication) and on-prem strategies.
• Maintain and enforce standards for database environments and technical documentation; ensure cloud governance, tagging, and change management procedures are followed.
• Provide Level-2/Level-3 escalation support and troubleshooting for production incidents and participate in an on-call rotation as required.
• Collaborate with application and cloud/infrastructure teams to design cloud architectures, optimize database costs and performance, and support deployments.
• Other duties as assigned.

Position specific job responsibilities:

1. Cloud Architecture & Operations: Design, implement, and operate database platforms across public clouds and hybrid architectures - selecting managed services, sizing instances, configuring networking, and implementing secure connectivity (VNet/VPC, private endpoints, peering, VPN/Express Route/Direct Connect).

2. Managed & Native Services: Operate and optimize managed cloud database services (Azure SQL, RDS/Aurora, Cloud SQL), No

SQL/document databases (Cosmos DB, Dynamo

DB), and analytics platforms (Synapse, Redshift, Big Query). Implement best practices for scalability, availability, and cost.

3.
Migration & Modernization: Lead and execute database migration efforts (assessment, schema/data migration, cutover, validation), refactoring where appropriate for cloud-native usage, and runbook updates post-migration.

4. Automation & IaC: Implement Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, ARM, Cloud Formation) and automations (Power Shell, Azure CLI, AWS CLI) to deploy, configure, and manage databases and related cloud infrastructure reproducibly.

5. Observability & Cost Management: Create monitoring and alerting (cloud native + SQL monitoring) and own cost governance for database workloads (rightsizing, autoscaling, and reserved instance/commitment strategies).

6. Security & Compliance: Implement cloud security controls, encryption-at-rest/in-transit, key management, IAM policies, and assist with compliance assessments and evidence collection.

7. Hybrid Operations: Manage hybrid topologies that span on-prem Windows servers and cloud services, orchestrate failover and DR between on-prem and cloud as needed, and ensure consistent configuration and documentation.

8. Collaboration & Leadership: Act as technical lead on cloud database projects, mentor junior staff, and work with application owners to migrate and modernize application database dependencies.

Flexibility, excellence, and passion are vital qualities within Computing Services. Inclusion, collaboration, and cultural sensitivity are valued competencies refore, we are in search of a team member who is able to effectively interact with a varied population of internal and external partners at a high level of integrity. We are looking for someone who shares our values and who will support the mission of the university through their work.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science,…