Job Description & Details
This is a hands-on production engineering role embedded within the platform team of a major investment management firm in Boston. You will spend a good chunk of your time keeping critical SQL Server instances healthy while gradually shifting the infrastructure toward modern cloud and automation patterns.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
Expect to juggle a mix of high-stakes firefighting and proactive platform building. Your day-to-day will range from diagnosing gnarly locking and deadlocking issues in production to writing Python or PowerShell scripts to automate administrative drudgery. You will also collaborate closely with application developers to optimize execution plans, tune heavy queries, and design reliable ETL/ELT data pipelines that feed the firm's financial analytics.
The Core Tech Stack
Deep, battle-tested expertise in Microsoft SQL Server is non-negotiable here, covering everything from HA/DR setups to advanced performance tuning and index maintenance. Beyond traditional DBA skills, you need solid scripting chops in Python, PowerShell, or Bash to handle automation. Familiarity with AWS, Terraform, and Git is critical because the team is actively pushing infrastructure-as-code and modern CI/CD practices across their data platforms.
Interview Expectations
You will likely be asked to walk through a real-world scenario involving a sudden performance bottleneck or deadlock storm in a high-transaction production environment, where the interviewer wants to see your methodical approach to reading execution plans and identifying missing indexes. They will also test your scripting and automation mindset by asking how you would design an automated failover or patching workflow using Python or PowerShell while minimizing downtime.
Application Advice
Make sure your resume heavily highlights your deep production SQL Server tuning experience rather than just basic database CRUD operations. Explicitly feature any automation scripts you've written in Python, PowerShell, or Bash, along with keywords like AWS, Terraform, HA/DR, and CI/CD to ensure you easily sail through the ATS and catch the hiring manager's eye.