The Database Administrator is responsible for the reliability, performance, security, and scalability of the organization’s core data platforms.  This role focuses on keeping SQL Server and Azure data platforms reliable, secure, and performant to support reporting, analytics, and day-to-day operations.

This position emphasizes platform ownership, proactive system health management, and the implementation of guardrails that promote safe, efficient, and reliable platform usage. The Database Administrator partners closely with stakeholders and the IT team to maintain the data ecosystem.

This is a full-time, exempt, salaried position reporting to the Director of Data Technologies. Candidates must be local to Kansas City, MO, and after a successful training period, there are opportunities to work remotely.

Platform Health & Performance

• Oversee the health, availability, and performance of SQL Server and supporting data platforms.
• Monitor system performance, capacity, and utilization; proactively identify and remediate risks.
• Tune queries, indexes, storage, and compute resources to ensure consistent and predictable performance.

Database Administration & Operations

• Manage SQL Server administration tasks, including indexing strategies, maintenance plans, and capacity planning.
• Develop and maintain automation using SQL Agent jobs, PowerShell, T-SQL, or scripting tools.
• Maintain operational procedures and documentation.

AI Platform Readiness

• Leverage AI assisted tooling to improve platform reliability and operations efficiencies.
• Partner with leadership to evaluate, govern, and leverage AI-enabled capabilities within the data platform ecosystem.

Backup, Recovery & Disaster Recovery

• Design, implement, and test backup and recovery strategies.
• Support disaster recovery planning and validation across Azure and SQL environments.
• Ensure recovery objectives align with business and operational requirements.

Azure & Cloud Platform Oversight

• Manage Azure virtual machines, storage accounts, networking configurations, and security controls related to data platforms.
• Partner with infrastructure and vendor teams to ensure cloud resources are configured securely and cost-effectively.
• Support Fabric or future platform services as they are introduced.

Security & Guardrails

• Implement least-privileged access, role-based security, and compliance guardrails across environments.
• Partner with leadership to enforce standards for platform usage and operational discipline.

Collaboration & Architecture Support

• Collaborate with the IT team to ensure platforms support reliable data movement and reporting.
• Provide technical guidance on platform architecture decisions and best operational practices.

Requirements

Education & Experience

• At least 3-6 years of related experience with a bachelor's degree. An equivalent combination of education and experience will be considered.

Required Technical Background

• Proven experience administering production in SQL Server environments, including performance tuning, indexing strategies, query optimization, monitoring and capacity planning.
• Hands-on experience supporting Azure infrastructure related to data platforms, including virtual machines, storage, networking, and security configurations.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and validating backup, recovery, and disaster recovery (DR) strategies.
• Experience implementing monitoring, alerting, and preventive maintenance for data platforms.
• Strong scripting and automation experience using PowerShell, T-SQL, and/or Python.
• Working knowledge of security and access controls, including least-privilege access and role-based security models.

Preferred Background

• Experience supporting hybrid or cloud-first data architectures.
• Exposure to Microsoft Fabric or modern analytics platforms.
• Experience participating in incident response, on-call support, or production issue resolution for mission-critical systems.

Physical Requirements

• Office & Computer Work: Ability to work regularly at a computer terminal in a fast-paced environment with frequent interruptions.
• Noise & Communication: Able to work in an office with moderate noise levels. Ability to communicate and interpret detailed information effectively.

This job description serves as a summary of the employment-at-will relationship and is not a contract. Responsibilities may evolve, and other duties may be assigned as needed.