Senior DBA/DBE Consultant – SQL Server Performance & Scalability

About the role

We are looking for a Senior DBA/DBE Consultant to act as the technical authority on SQL Server internals, performance engineering, and scalability for a leading U.S. financial‑technology firm and regulated bank. This hands‑on consulting position focuses on diagnosing, optimizing and scaling mission‑critical transactional systems that handle high‑volume financial operations.

Key responsibilities

• Diagnose complex production issues using deep knowledge of storage engine internals, query optimization, SQLOS, memory management, transaction logging and tempdb.
• Lead performance‑tuning initiatives for high‑concurrency OLTP environments, including wait‑statistics analysis, execution‑plan review, Query Store, Extended Events and performance counters.
• Design and optimise indexing, partitioning, statistics and data‑lifecycle strategies; resolve blocking, deadlocks, latch contention, parameter sniffing and I/O bottlenecks.
• Implement and troubleshoot Always On Availability Groups, SQL Server Replication and disaster‑recovery plans, including validation and documentation.
• Develop automation with PowerShell, dbatools, T‑SQL and CI/CD pipelines; collaborate with application engineers, SREs, architects and security teams.

Required profile

• 10+ years of SQL Server DBA or Database Engineering experience, with 5+ years in a senior performance‑focused role.
• Strong background in financial services, banking or payments and experience operating in PCI‑DSS, SOX or similar regulated environments.
• Proven track record supporting large‑scale OLTP systems (multi‑terabyte databases, thousands of TPS).
• Advanced T‑SQL development and execution‑plan analysis skills.

Required skills

• SQL Server 2016–2022, T‑SQL, Query Store, Extended Events, DMVs, wait‑statistics.
• PowerShell, dbatools, CI/CD pipelines.
• Always On Availability Groups, Replication, WSFC, Windows Server, SAN/NVMe storage.
• Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure SQL Database, SQL Server on Azure/AWS, cloud performance and cost optimisation.
• In‑Memory OLTP, columnstore, Linux containers, SSDT, Flyway, Liquibase.
• Familiarity with PostgreSQL, Cosmos DB or Snowflake is a plus.