SQL DBA Canada, Remote Contract Role

Primary: SQL admin, Azure SQL or SQL Server on Azure/AWS.

Secondary: Experience with CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, and release support for database changes.

Job Description:

We are seeking an experienced SQL Database Administrator Contractor to support the performance, reliability, security, and availability of our database environment. This role is responsible for administering Microsoft SQL Server databases across development, test, and production systems, with a strong focus on backup and recovery, disaster recovery preparedness, performance tuning, monitoring, troubleshooting, data masking, and automation. The contractor will work closely with application teams, infrastructure engineers, security stakeholders, and access management teams to ensure database platforms remain stable, scalable, secure, and compliant. Key responsibilities • Administer, monitor, and maintain SQL Server database environments. • Manage database backups, restores, disaster recovery processes, and high availability configurations. • Diagnose and resolve database performance issues, blocking, deadlocks, failed jobs, and capacity constraints. • Optimize queries, indexes, and execution plans in partnership with development teams. • Configure and maintain database security, user access, roles, permissions, and privileged access controls. • Support PAM and BeyondTrust onboarding activities for database accounts, access workflows, and privileged credential management. • Implement and support data masking solutions for sensitive and regulated data sets. • Develop and maintain automation scripts for routine DBA tasks, monitoring, deployments, and operational support. • Support patching, upgrades, migrations, and environment refresh activities. • Create and maintain operational documentation, maintenance plans, and recovery runbooks. • Monitor database health, storage growth, and system performance using standard DBA tools. • Ensure data integrity, system availability, and compliance with internal security and operational standards. • Provide production support, incident response, and root cause analysis as needed. Required qualifications • 10+ years of hands-on SQL Server DBA experience in production environments. • Hands on expertise in migration of SQL Server from 2016 to latest SQL version in an Always on setup. • Strong experience with Microsoft SQL Server administration, backup and recovery, disaster recovery planning, and performance tuning. • Solid knowledge of indexing, statistics, query optimization, and execution plan analysis. • Experience with SQL Server Agent, replication, Always On Availability Groups, or clustering and CDC. • Proficiency in T-SQL scripting, automation, and troubleshooting. • Experience with database security, privileged access management, and auditing practices. • Experience with PAM solutions and BeyondTrust onboarding for privileged database access. • Experience implementing or supporting data masking for sensitive data protection. • Familiarity with Windows Server environments and infrastructure coordination. • Ability to work independently, prioritize effectively, and communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred qualifications • Experience supporting cloud-hosted SQL environments such as Azure SQL or SQL Server on Azure/AWS. • Experience with monitoring tools such as Redgate, SolarWinds, SentryOne, or similar. • Background in regulated, security-sensitive, or high-availability environments. • Experience with CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, and release support for database changes.