Overview

We are looking for a highly experienced Senior SQL Server Database Specialist to support a critical Database Performance & Stability Assessment / Continuous Expert Review project.

The role will focus on assessing, monitoring and improving the performance, stability and resilience of critical SQL Server environments. The consultant will conduct an in-depth technical assessment, monitor the platform over an extended period, identify root causes and risks, and define a structured remediation roadmap.

What will you do?

• Perform a comprehensive assessment of the SQL Server infrastructure, including:
  • SQL clusters and high availability configurations.
  • Storage, network and operating system.
  • SQL Server instance configuration and overall health.
  • Resource utilization, memory pressure and I/O bottlenecks.
  • Wait Statistics, blocking and deadlocks.
  • TempDB, fragmentation and statistics.
  • Database growth, capacity, logical architecture and indexes.
  • Critical queries, Stored Procedures and Jobs.
• Monitor the platform for a period of 4 to 8 weeks to identify performance trends and progressive degradation.
• Investigate potential issues such as:
  • Memory leaks.
  • Cache pollution.
  • Parameter sniffing.
  • Growth of temporary objects.
  • Fragmentation and other cumulative performance problems.
• Shadow operational activities, including hourly monitoring, recovery procedures, cluster failovers and incident/alert analysis.
• Identify technical risks, constraints, root causes and supported technical hypotheses.
• Define a remediation plan covering:
  • Quick Wins – actions to be implemented within 2 weeks.
  • Medium Term – improvements to be implemented within approximately 2 months.
  • Long Term – architectural evolution and strategic improvements.
• Deliver knowledge transfer sessions to APS, DBA and Application teams.

What are we looking for?

• Minimum of 10 years of experience working with critical database platforms.
• Proven experience with SQL Server Enterprise.
• Strong expertise in Always On Availability Groups.
• Strong knowledge of Windows Failover Clustering.
• Extensive experience in Performance Tuning and troubleshooting.
• Deep understanding of SQL Server Internals.
• Strong knowledge of Memory Management and memory-related performance issues.
• Extensive experience with TempDB optimization.
• Strong knowledge of Wait Statistics analysis.
• Experience with Query Store.
• Experience with Extended Events.
• Strong knowledge of Capacity Planning.
• Ability to perform complex root cause analysis and translate findings into clear technical recommendations.
• Experience working with highly available, business-critical SQL Server environments.