Database Administrator

Database Administrator

Salary to: £45,000pa

Location: Flexible – Hybrid, expected to attend the Milton Keynes office at least once a month

An exciting opportunity to join an innovative, highly successful organisation supplying leading edge technology to the NHS. Applications are invited for an experienced DBA to join the Database Team within the Operations Department to monitor, maintain and support databases in Managed Instances, big data in Azure SQL, as well as limited amount of on premise SQL databases on Virtual Machines.

Technical Skills:

• Cloud Services (ideally Azure) experience is essential – including Azure Data Factory and Azure DevOps
• Excellent performance tuning skills (experience of Query Tuning, Indexing, Locking etc.)
• Strong T-SQL Experience (creating / administrating stored procedures, scripts, functions, triggers and other objects)
• Experience in the manipulation, transformation, and exploration of large multi-dimensional datasets
• Experience in database installation, backup, restore and maintenance
• BSC or equivalent in a software engineering / DB discipline and / or Professional qualifications appropriate to DB engineering roles is desirable.
• Experience of large transactional databases (100GB+)
• Excellent knowledge of the SQL Database Engine
• Experience of database release / upgrades with product releases
• Extensive experience of working with Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008/2012/2014
• Data Warehouse development, ETL and transformation into conformed design
• Knowledge of SSIS packages
• Excellent experience and knowledge of the Microsoft stack
• Understanding of relational database design & dimensional Data-modelling
• Some experience of using Visual Studio 
• Knowledge of C# and .Net framework desirable
• Knowledge of NOSQL / Document DBs advantageous
• Knowledge of SSRS reports advantageous but not essential
• Knowledge of 3rd party toolkits e.g. RedGate desirable but not essential
• Experience of Source Control (BitBucket/Kiln / Mercurial) 
• Strong SQL Skills (SQL server 2012/2016, T-SQL) and development skills in T-SQL, writing scripts, Log Shipping, producing reports (SSRS), performance tuning, automated back-ups, security
• Any experience with Bespoke Software Solutions, ITIL, Agile, Jira and ISO 27001 will be advantageous but not essential
• Domain or Product expertise in IT Healthcare would be advantageous but not essential

 Role Description

The ideal person for this role will play an integral part of the service provision that we provide, working and assisting with junior team members, development colleagues and application support team to ensure the databases remain performant and quality of data integrity is high. Training of the product and database schema will be provided to bring you up to speed.

The key to success in this role is being organised, adaptable and alert. It is a fast paced environment with the requirement to service and support the live customer databases, deploying updates as required, along with support programme work including migrating data, loading in new datasets, and running scripts to update data.

This role will suit someone who has a few years’ experience as a DBA or a Junior DBA looking to progress, has worked on Azure or other similar cloud platforms and is keen to contribute their efforts in a busy but rewarding environment.

Main Responsibilities

• Database troubleshooting and maintenance to meet availability requirements and resolve service desk calls in accordance with SLAs (Service Level Agreements). Ensure that work on defect resolution does not impact on agreed product deliverables, escalating to development DBAs for code fixes.
• Monitor Database health and performance, ensuring high levels of performance, availability, sustainability, and security.
• Cleanse or translate (migrate) data so that it can be effectively moved between systems, apps, or software for programme work or to support incidents as required by use of SQL Scripting.
• Test the new system and data after the migration or data fix to find errors and/or points of corruption and produce quality reports to confirm success.
• Audit existing data systems and deployments and identify errors or areas for improvement.
• Ensure that all changes to the database follow the change management policy, ensuring high level of testing and risk management.
• Liaise with Database developers during handovers of projects, new features, or releases to ensure they are understood, deployed accurately as required through DACPAC deployments, scripts or Azure pipelines and delivered in a timely fashion.
• Maintain data integrity and security (manage roles and permissions of database users).
• Generate traces, execution plans, identify performance issues, deadlocks/contention and resolve them.
• Ensure reviews are conducted on a regular basis to improve / enhance the database, and that the improvements are consistent with the departmental guidelines (working closely with other members of the DB team). Where no formal guidelines exist, work with peers to formulate and enforce such guidelines.
• Provide technical guidance and support to your colleagues ensuring database products are optimised, follow best practice guidelines and 
• Keep abreast of technology trends and how they apply to your area. Put forward suggestions for improvement to processes or tools where applicable.
• Develop a level of product expertise across the solution architecture.     
• To be part of an On-Call rota as required

Personal Skills:

• Confidence to communicate with customers in a professional manner, remotely or over the phone 
• Must be able to work as part of a team but also independently where appropriate 
• Must be ability to prioritise work with the ability to adapt to a fluid and varied workload 
• Natural desire to investigate and diagnose issues and document processes as and when required 
• Able to work in a logical and systematic fashion 
• Demonstrate problem solving and troubleshooting skills 
• Exhibit a flexible, can-do attitude to problem solving using own initiative. 
• Be reliable and motivated with the ability to stay focused when working from home   
• Demonstrate an attention to detail 

 ATA Recruitment Solutions is working in the capacity of an Employment Agency for this position.