SQL DBA Senior Technical Lead

Role: SQL DBA Senior Technical Lead

Location: Vancouver, BC

ONSITE

Full time

Role Overview

The person will lead Microsoft SQL Server database administration, production support, operational governance and database service delivery for the BC Hydro PU13 Database tower. The role requires hands-on SQL DBA expertise, leadership, troubleshooting, availability management, performance tuning, backup/recovery governance and cross-team coordination.

Key Accountabilities

• Lead end-to-end SQL Server DBA operations, technical delivery and L2/L3 support.

• Administer installation, configuration, upgrades, patching, migrations, cloning, refreshes, SQL Agent jobs, storage and capacity.

• Manage Always On Availability Groups, Failover Cluster Instances, log shipping, replication and mirroring as applicable.

• Plan and validate full, differential and transaction log backups, restore testing, point-in-time recovery and DR exercises.

• Monitor health, availability, performance, space, jobs, alerts, wait statistics, blocking, deadlocks and logs.

• Tune execution plans, indexes, statistics, queries, waits, memory, CPU, I/O and workloads.

• Support database security, access, logins/users/roles, auditing, encryption awareness, vulnerability remediation and compliance.

• Troubleshoot availability, backup, transaction log, disk capacity, Agent job, connectivity and authentication incidents.

• Coordinate with application, infrastructure, backup, Windows/Unix, security, vendor and customer teams.

• Lead technical reviews, guide DBAs, perform peer reviews, allocate tasks and ensure SLA/standards adherence.

• Participate in incident, problem, request, change, release and knowledge management.

• Maintain runbooks, SOPs, architecture notes, implementation plans, DR evidence, RCA, release notes and knowledge articles.

Experience Required

• Good communication with customer stakeholders, application owners, infrastructure, security, DBAs and delivery leadership.

• Minimum 10-15 years of enterprise Microsoft SQL Server DBA production support experience.

• SQL Server 2016/2019/2022 or later, SSMS, SQL Agent, Always On, clustering and backup/recovery.

• Installation, configuration, patching, upgrades, migrations, refresh, tuning and monitoring.

• Windows Server, services, event logs, filesystem, permissions, PowerShell and deployment support.

• Mission-critical HA/DR, monitoring and 24x7 production support.

• T-SQL troubleshooting, execution plans, index/statistics tuning, waits, deadlocks, blocking, Query Store and resource management.

• Security, access controls, auditing, vulnerability remediation and compliance preferred.

• CommVault or enterprise backup platform experience preferred.

• Utility, regulated infrastructure, NERC CIP-adjacent, cloud readiness or managed services preferred.

• Ability to lead DBAs and deliver to SLA.

Technical Skills

• SQL Server 2016/2019/2022 or later: installation, configuration, upgrade, patching, migration, cloning and refresh.

• Always On Availability Groups, Failover Cluster Instances, log shipping, replication, mirroring, HA and DR.

• Backup/recovery, transaction log management, restore testing, point-in-time recovery and DR exercises.

• SSMS, SQL Agent, DMVs, Query Store, Extended Events, Profiler, counters and monitoring tools.

• T-SQL, stored procedures, functions, jobs, indexes, statistics, plans, waits, deadlocks/blocking and tuning.

• Windows Server DBA support, PowerShell, event logs, service accounts, storage and deployment.

• Database security, auditing, access management, encryption awareness and vulnerability remediation.

• Azure SQL, SQL Server on Azure VM, Azure Arc-enabled SQL Server, automation or cloud readiness preferred.

• ITIL and ServiceNow/Jira/BMC Remedy.

• Managed services, SLA reporting, RCA, runbooks, SOPs, audit evidence and knowledge management.

Keywords to Search in Resumes

SQL DBA Technical Lead, Microsoft SQL Server DBA, SQL Server Administrator, SQL Server 2019, SQL Server 2022, Always On Availability Groups, Failover Cluster, Log Shipping, Replication, Database Mirroring, SQL Server Agent, SSMS, T-SQL, Query Store, Extended Events, Performance Tuning, Backup and Recovery, Disaster Recovery, Database Security, PowerShell, CommVault, ServiceNow, ITIL, BC Hydro