SQL Database Administrator - Senior Associate

Industry/Sector

Not Applicable

Specialism

Managed Services

Management Level

Senior Associate

Job Description & Summary

At PwC, our people in information technology operations focus on managing and maintaining the technology infrastructure and systems to provide smooth operations and efficient delivery of IT services. This includes monitoring network performance, troubleshooting issues, and implementing security measures.

In IT systems administration at PwC, you will work through the implementation, management, administration and advanced troubleshooting of IT solutions. You will be responsible for maintaining the seamless operation of an organisation's IT infrastructure, which includes maintaining servers, managing network configurations, and providing critical support to prevent and resolve technical issues.

Focused on relationships, you are building meaningful client connections, and learning how to manage and inspire others. Navigating increasingly complex situations, you are growing your personal brand, deepening technical expertise and awareness of your strengths. You are expected to anticipate the needs of your teams and clients, and to deliver quality. Embracing increased ambiguity, you are comfortable when the path forward isn’t clear, you ask questions, and you use these moments as opportunities to grow.

Examples of the skills, knowledge, and experiences you need to lead and deliver value at this level include but are not limited to:

Respond effectively to the diverse perspectives, needs, and feelings of others.

Use a broad range of tools, methodologies and techniques to generate new ideas and solve problems.

Use critical thinking to break down complex concepts.

Understand the broader objectives of your project or role and how your work fits into the overall strategy.

Develop a deeper understanding of the business context and how it is changing.

Use reflection to develop self awareness, enhance strengths and address development areas.

Interpret data to inform insights and recommendations.

Uphold and reinforce professional and technical standards (e.g. refer to specific PwC tax and audit guidance), the Firm's code of conduct, and independence requirements.

The Opportunity

When you join PwC Acceleration Centers (ACs), you step into a pivotal role focused on actively supporting various Acceleration Center services, from Advisory to Assurance, Tax and Business Services. In our innovative hubs, you’ll engage in challenging projects and provide distinctive services to support client engagements through enhanced quality and innovation. You’ll also participate in dynamic and digitally enabled training that is designed to grow your technical and professional skills.

As part of the Application Support team you will provide critical technical support for cloud-based Tax applications, securing reliability and performance. As a Senior Associate, you will analyze complex issues, mentor junior team members, and build meaningful client connections while navigating the intricacies of application support in a dynamic environment.

Responsibilities

Provide essential technical support for cloud-based Tax applications

Analyze complex issues and propose viable solutions

Mentor junior team members to enhance their skills

Build and maintain positive client relationships

Navigate the complexities of application support in a dynamic setting

Maintain the reliability and performance of applications

Collaborate with cross-functional teams to address challenges

Uphold service delivery standards

What You Must Have

Bachelor's Degree

3 years of experience in application support

Oral and written proficiency in English required

What Sets You Apart

3 years of experience in application support

Experience with Microsoft Azure PaaS

Skilled in SQL for issue analysis

Familiarity with Kusto Query Language (KQL)

Experience with Microsoft DevOps and CI/CD pipelines

Scripting experience in Bash, PowerShell, Python

Understanding of ITIL processes

Experience with monitoring tools like DataDog

Ability to manage competing priorities

Skills needed for the role

Senior Associate – SQL Database Administrator (4–7 Years) A senior-level SQL Server engineer responsible for owning the reliability, performance, security, and availability of enterprise SQL databases. This role manages complex multi-node clusters, performance engineering, mission-critical tuning, security enforcement, and DR orchestration. The Senior Associate leads high-impact database changes, RCAs, and modernization initiatives.

Infrastructure-as-Code & Provisioning:

Terraform/Ansible CI/CD pipelines, audit logging, environment setup (dev/test/prod)

Backup & Recovery:

Schedule and validate daily/weekly/monthly backups, quarterly DR tests, maintain runbooks

Patch Management & Upgrades:

Plan and apply vendor patches, validate post-upgrade functionality

Performance & Capacity Planning:

Monitor CPU/memory/storage, tune queries and indexes, forecast 12–24 month growth

High Availability & Replication:

Configure clustering, Always On, log shipping, replication; conduct failover drills

Security & Compliance:

Implement encryption, masking, RBAC; audit user activity; generate compliance reports

Incident Management & RCA:

Detect deadlocks, corruption, failed logins; troubleshoot with app teams; document root causes

Reporting & Dashboarding:

Weekly performance and uptime dashboards; recommend optimization opportunities

Scripting & Automation:

Develop Shell, PowerShell, PL/SQL, T-SQL scripts; automate patching, backups, and user provisioning

Minimum Degree Required:

Bachelor’s Degree

Degree Preferred:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.

Minimum Years of Experience:

4-7 year(s)

Certifications Required:

None

Certifications Preferred:

Microsoft SQL Server Certifications (MCSA/MCSE), Azure SQL-related certifications

Required / Mandatory Knowledge/Skills:

(character count limit 5000) PLEASE ONLY USE THIS FIELD IF THIS IS A MUST HAVE SKILL FOR APPLICANT

1. Advanced SQL Server Administration

Manage complex environments with AlwaysOn AGs, multi-subnet clusters, multiple replicas, automatic failover, and geo-distributed DR.

Tune cluster quorum settings, failover policies, listener configurations, and read routing.

Implement encryption-at-rest, TDE, SSL enforcement, and security baselines.

2. Advanced Performance Engineering

Perform deep-dive performance tuning using:

DMVs/DMFs

Execution plan analysis (actual & estimated)

Stats & index maintenance frameworks

Extended Events

Query Store insights

Wait statistics, blocking chains, and resource semaphore analysis

Identify long-term performance trends and build proactive tuning strategies.

3. Database Development Support

Support schema design reviews, indexing strategies, partitioning, and stored procedure optimizations.

Collaborate with dev teams to optimize data models and improve transactional efficiency.

4. Backup/Restore & Disaster Recovery

Design and maintain enterprise backup strategies (full, diff, log, copy-only, encrypted backups).

Execute PIT recovery, AG replica rebuilds, DR failovers, cluster migrations, and cross-site replication checks.

Document and lead DR drills.

5. Security, Auditing, and Compliance

Implement role/security policies, least-privilege models, data masking, and auditing.

Remediate vulnerabilities, manage secrets, and enforce encryption policies.

6. ITSM Responsibilities (Strengthened)

Lead major database changes, patch cycles, upgrades, and migrations through CAB.

Own SQL-related incident triages, RCAs, and stability engineering.

Maintain SQL SLAs/KPIs:

Backup success rate

Query performance thresholds

AG health

Job reliability

DR readiness metrics

7. Modernization & Automation

Build automation frameworks for indexing, stats updates, health checks, and DR validation.

Assist with modernization:

PaaS migrations, SQL Managed Instance planning, DMS migrations.

Preferred Knowledge/Skills:

(character count limit 5000)* PLEASE MAKE THIS A BULLETED LIST WHERE EACH SENTENCE STARTS WITH THE SAME VERB TENSE (I.E. PROVIDES, DEVELOPS, FACILITATES, ETC.)

Should possess knowledge of following tools –

A. SQL Server

B. MySQL

C. MariaDB

D. MongoDB

E. PostgreSQL

F. PowerShell

G. AWS RDS, Aurora, NoSQL)

H. Terraform

I. Solarwinds SQL Diagnostics

J. Ansible

Travel Requirements

Up to 20%

Job Posting End Date