Senior Staff Engineer - Data Engineering

Role description

About the Role

Customer runs four production SQL Server environments carrying a large, complex transactional data estate. This role inherits an environment where deletion policies were not historically enforced, data volumes have accumulated significantly, and the estate is a live source for CDC-based ingestion into Redshift. Stabilising, governing, and evolving this estate is the primary mission.

Data Environment

4 x production SQL Server environments. SQL Server CDC Confluent/RedPanda Redshift via DBT. EC2 compute. DynamoDB for specific workloads. CyberArk for privileged access management.

Key Responsibilities

• Own all four production SQL Server environments — performance, availability, security, and compliance

• Define and implement data retention and deletion policies — a critical gap confirmed by Data and AI Lead

• Lead SQL Server CDC configuration and reliability for the Redshift ingestion pipeline

• Manage data volume growth — implement archiving, partitioning, and capacity strategies

• Oversee database security including CyberArk-based privileged access management

• Collaborate with the Data Platform team on the broader platform consolidation programme

• Establish and enforce DBA standards, backup and recovery procedures across all four environments

• Mentor and manage IC DBAs within the team

• Ensure PCI DSS compliance across all SQL Server environments — PAN, PII, CVV controls

Required Skills & Experience

• 12+ years in SQL Server DBA roles — multi-environment production experience required

• Proven experience managing large-scale SQL Server estates with significant data volume challenges

• Deep expertise in data retention, archiving, and deletion policy design and implementation

• Strong SQL Server CDC experience for downstream ingestion pipelines

• AWS experience: EC2, DynamoDB, RDS

• Familiarity with CyberArk or equivalent PAM solutions

• PCI DSS database compliance experience — PAN/PII data handling

• Experience with legacy SQL Server environments and inherited technical debt

• Strong people management and mentoring skills

Skills

Data Scientist/ AI ML, Communication