Senior Database Administrator

Job content

Overall Summary

An opportunity has arisen for a skilled and experienced Senior Database Administrator to join the team of a high-growth platform provider Winterflood Business Services (WBS).

Working closely with the Database Architect, Technology Architect & broader development function this role is responsible for;

Managing & maintaining all database environments with focus on the mission critical, real-time trading and custodial platforms paying particular attention to performance, security & high availability

Operational resilience with robust reporting & controls on performance, contingency and recovery.

Supporting development teams ensuring database standards and best practices for performance, security, architecture & design are followed across the WBS on-premise & cloud infrastructure.

Supporting the Database team ensuring objectives and personal development plans are aligned with business strategy, priority and planning

Communication to all levels of the business (including and up to Board Level) of progress, performance and planning

Responsibilities

Ensuring database development standards and best practices for performance, security, architecture & design are followed across the WBS on-prem & cloud infrastructure.

Operational resilience with robust reporting & controls on performance, contingency and recovery.

Ensuring all database environments & instances are performant, highly available, secure and recoverable.

Code review and performance testing of changes for all database deployments ensuring all internal standards are met.

Designing, building, managing & upgrading SQL Server 2016 instances and databases in a complex, highly available & mission critical environment.

Maintain and develop internal monitoring tools using PowerShell, T-SQL & Extended Events.

Follow all internal governance policy and processes. Ownership of change control, including managing reporting and release management as expected within a real-time trading environment.

Provide technical oversight of all database delivery including the completion of a detailed “run book” setting out the change, risk assessment and recovery plan.

Awareness of latest data protection and security threats and to make sure we mitigate against these risks.

Operate, maintain and develop database deployment workflows.

Ensure compliance with database tool software licencing obligations required for the continued development of the WBS systems.

Support the Database Architect in the ownership of all assigned 2nd line (Compliance & Risk) and 3rd line (Audit) reporting relative to the function. Ensure all management responses are approved and agreed actions completed by the agreed deadline

Support the Database Architect in the leadership of an appropriately resourced and structured Database team ensuring objectives and personal development plans are aligned with business strategy, priority and planning.

Own the completion of all effective people management processes (recruitment, objectives, personal development, talent & succession & performance management) for the function.

Ensure regular 121’s and personal development reviews are maintained for all direct reports.

Maintain a skills matrix and ensure that there is no dependency on key people that poses a risk to WBS. This should also take into account future skills requirements planning.

Promote the maintenance of a strong culture of compliance, risk management, integrity, innovation, client focus and other such Winterflood or Close Brothers values.

Encourage and support a culture of innovation and forward thinking.

Build strong relationships with other functions and business units to collectively achieve WBS strategic priorities and goals

Support the Database Architect with input to the overall WBS strategy and ownership of the WBS Technology Database strategy, planning & delivery.

Contribute to research & design through horizon scanning in respect of long-term technological requirements or advancements which may meet future needs and/or to provide WBS with strategic and competitive advantage.

Database capacity planning and management with a key focus on ensuring availability including through un-expected performance spikes.

Communication to all levels of the business (including and up to Board Level) of progress, performance and planning.

Proactively monitor key systems, investigating changes and responding with recommendations in an efficient manner to senior stakeholders to return services to normal operation. Escalate to the Database Architect as appropriate.

Provide leadership on live issues & incidents ensuring all facts are established, communication of updates & resolution and a root cause is identified with a supporting plan to fix.

Support teams with investigations, providing best practices, coding standards, guidance & knowledge transfer around database design, development & operation.

Manage appropriate quality controls and reporting metrics across all parts of the database. Highlight any key areas of concern / focus for improvement to the Database Architect to report to both the PRC and Technology Committee as appropriate.

Required Skills & Experience

5 years proven experience in database administration

Financial Services or a regulated sector experience considered an advantage

Mandatory Qualification: A degree in a relevant IT specialism or proven experience to the same level

Strong understanding of transactional processes typical in financial systems

Experience of using Database cloud solutions (AWS/Azure) would be an advantage.

Optimising SQL configuration and experience with establishing system metric baselines to help provide real-time capacity and performance metrics.

Expert in performance tuning and query optimisation with practical experience using Execution Plans and Query Statistics.

Strong T-SQL Programming experience to assist with query optimisations and to develop/maintain internal monitoring / processes.

Strong investigative and root cause analysis skills utilising data from multiple sources including DMV’s.

Working knowledge of monitoring tools such as Redgate & Grafana.

In-depth hands-on experience of using and implementing High Availability and Disaster Recovery components; Windows Failover Clustering; Always-On Availability Groups & Log Shipping.

Practical experience of using tools for source control, build & deploy, focused on automated deployments of SQL databases, SSRS reports and SSIS packages.

Strong experience developing & maintaining SSRS reports and SSIS packages

PowerShell programming experience to develop internal monitoring solutions.

Comprehensive understanding of data security best practices; segregation of duties, break-glass requirements and reporting (GDPR focus) with experience implementing using AD Security Groups, SQL Roles & Permissions, Data classification, Vulnerability assessments & Encryption of Backups and Data (using Always Encrypted would be a distinct advantage).