Senior SQL Database Administrator (1099/W2 or Fulltime)

Job Title: Senior SQL Database Administrator Location: Parsippany, NJDepartment: IT Infrastructure / Data Platform Key Responsibilities Database Administration Architect, manage, and support SQL Server environments across production and non-production systems. Implement and maintain High Availability/Disaster Recovery solutions such as Always On Availability Groups (AOAG), transactional replication, and mirroring. Design and execute data archival and removal strategies in alignment with compliance and business requirements. Performance Optimization & Monitoring Optimize T-SQL queries, indexing strategies, and database schema design. Monitor and enhance database performance using tools such as SQL Sentry, SolarWinds DPA, and Redgate Monitor. Develop proactive monitoring scripts and automation workflows. Data Security & Compliance Implement security controls, including TDE, column-level encryption, row-level security, auditing, and role-based access. Ensure adherence to HIPAA, HITECH, SOC 2, GDPR, and other regulatory standards. Maintain secure backup, archival, and data retention policies. Disaster Recovery Design and manage comprehensive DR strategies involving offsite replication, cross-region backups, and DR drills. Define and validate RTO/RPO requirements and ensure accurate documentation of failover procedures. Collaboration with Offshore Teams Partner with offshore DBA and engineering teams for code reviews, standards governance, best practice alignment, training, and mentorship. Establish effective asynchronous communication processes and robust documentation workflows. AI/ML & Data Readiness Support Prepare and structure SQL datasets for generative AI/ML use cases, including prompt generation, training, embeddings, and RAG pipelines. Collaborate with AI and data science teams on ingestion performance, tokenization, and real-time access patterns. Cross-Platform Database Support Assist with integration and data migration efforts across PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, Oracle, Azure SQL, AWS RDS, and Managed Instances. Contribute to cross-database ETL, reporting, and conversion initiatives. Leadership & Strategic Contributions Lead and mentor DBAs and developers across global teams. Establish and maintain documentation, training frameworks, and standards. Collaborate with DevOps, BI, Security, and Application Engineering teams on architecture and solution delivery. QualificationsRequired Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related discipline. 7+ years of experience as a SQL Server DBA (2019 or later) supporting production and high-availability environments. Strong expertise in AOAG, replication, mirroring, and performance tuning. Hands-on experience with monitoring tools (SQL Sentry, DPA, Redgate). Proven experience in data protection, security compliance, and regulatory frameworks (HIPAA, GDPR, etc.). Experience collaborating with offshore teams in structured environments. Preferred Experience supporting AI/ML data pipelines, RAG architectures, embeddings, or vector databases. Exposure to PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Oracle in large-scale enterprise environments. Cloud experience with Azure SQL, AWS RDS, or hybrid deployments. Relevant certifications such as Microsoft Azure DBA, Security+, or CDMP. Job Type: Contract Pay: $50.21 - $65.38 per hour Expected hours: 40 per week Work Location: In person