Sr. SQL Server Database Administrator

When you join AIS, you're joining a mission-driven team that's passionate about making a difference. You'll work on projects that matter, alongside industry-leading experts, in an environment that fosters innovation, driving client success, and empowering our team to make a lasting impact. As an employee-owned company, we value collaboration, inclusivity, continuous growth, and shared success.

• Employee Ownership: Your contributions directly impact the company's success, and you share in its achievements.

• Continuous Learning: Access to resources, training, and mentorship to support your professional growth.

• Inclusive Culture: A workplace where diversity is celebrated, and everyone's voice is valued.

• Mission-Driven Work: Engage in projects that make a meaningful difference for our clients and communities.

At AIS, we're looking for more than just skills - we're looking for driven individuals who are passionate about making a difference, eager to grow, and aligned with our core principles.

• Core Knowledge & Skills: Operates independently or as a team lead, selects appropriate persistence technologies (e.g., EF, Dapper), defines source control strategies, and designs subsystem infrastructure.

• Work & Complexity: Tackles complex problems with thorough analysis, manages cross-functional delivery, and improves system reliability and scalability.

• Quality & Independence: Consistently meets deadlines even under challenging conditions, enforces standards through detailed reviews, and establishes productivity benchmarks for the team.

• Teamwork & Communication: Provides functional leadership by setting objectives, organizing resources, resolving conflicts, and engaging confidently with both internal and external stakeholders.

• Consulting & Engagement: Troubleshoots advanced client issues, supports requirements gathering, and contributes to vendor presentations or proposal activities.

Project Summary

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior SQL Server Database Administrator (DBA) to support, secure, and optimize missioncritical database environments across multiple security domains. This role is responsible for fulllifecycle SQL Server administration, including installation, configuration, backup/recovery, performance tuning, HA/DR, security hardening, and compliance enforcement. The ideal candidate brings extensive handson experience managing enterprise SQL Server environments and supporting advanced analytics, reporting, and application teams. An active Top Secret clearance is required.

Key Responsibilities

• Install, configure, and maintain Microsoft SQL Server across Dev, UAT, and Production environments hosted on Windows Server and cloud platforms.

• Own SQL Server installation, configuration, patching, backup/recovery, performance tuning, and security enforcement.

• Provide daily operational support, including monitoring, troubleshooting, maintenance jobs, and vulnerability remediation.

• Design, implement, and support HA/DR solutions, including Always On Availability Groups and Windows Server Failover Clustering.

• Perform advanced performance tuning, TSQL optimization, index management, and issue resolution.

• Support SQL Server components such as SSRS, SSAS, and Power BI Report Server.

• Proactively maintain SQL environments for performance, reliability, and compliance.

• Implement and enforce database security controls, including TDE, encryption standards, STIG compliance, and audit readiness.

• Resolve complex database issues, such as performance bottlenecks, data corruption, and connectivity problems.

• Maintain detailed documentation for configurations, standards, procedures, and recovery strategies.

• Collaborate with developers on schema design, stored procedures, and query optimization.

• Plan and execute database upgrades, migrations, and patch cycles.

• Ensure compliance with regulatory, industry, and customer security requirements.

• Participate in oncall rotations for afterhours support.

• Install and support Oracle databases as needed.

Required For This Opportunity

• Active Top Secret clearance.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, or related field (or equivalent experience).

• Minimum 9 years of database administration experience, including 5+ years of recent SQL Server DBA work.

• Deep understanding of SQL Server architecture, internals, and performance optimization.

• Proven experience with HA/DR technologies (Always On AG, WSFC, failover technologies).

• Expertise in encryption methods (TDE, SSL), database security, and STIG compliance.

• Advanced TSQL skills for troubleshooting, tuning, and query optimization.

• Experience supporting enterprise SQL Server environments across multiple security fabrics.

• Strong documentation, communication, and problemsolving skills.

Nice to Have Skills

• Experience with SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS.

• Familiarity with cloud platforms such as Azure SQL or Amazon RDS.

• Professional database certifications (e.g., Microsoft Certified: Azure DBA Associate).

• Experience supporting Power BI Report Server or advanced analytics workloads.

Applied Information Sciences does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, religion, color, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other basis. Employment decisions are based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs.