Senior SQL Server Database Administrator

About Cls:

CLS is the trusted party at the centre of the global FX ecosystem.  Utilized by thousands of counterparties, CLS makes FX safer, smoother and more cost effective.  Trillions of dollars’ worth of currency flows through our systems each day. 

Created by the market for the market, our unrivalled global settlement infrastructure reduces systemic risk and provides standardization for participants in many of the world’s most actively traded currencies.  We deliver huge efficiencies and savings for our clients: in fact, our approach to multilateral netting shrinks funding requirements by over 96% on average, so clients can put their capital and resources to better use.

CLS products are designed to enable clients to manage risk most effectively across the full FX lifecycle – whether through more efficient processing tools or market intelligence derived from the largest single source of FX executed data available to the market.

Our ambition to make a positive difference starts with our people.  Our values underpin everything that we do at CLS and define our working environment:

• Pivotal purpose
• Trusted guardian
• Targeted innovation
• Facilitate connections
• Delivering excellence
• Inclusive culture

Job Information:

• Functional title: Vice President, SQL Server Database Administrator
• Department - Technology
• Corporate level - Vice President
• Report to - Director, Infrastructure DB Support
• Location - Iselin, NJ (Hybrid Onsite 2x per week)
• Expected full-time salary range between $ 140,000- $170,000 + variable compensation + 401(k) match + benefits.

Note: Disclosure as required by NY Pay Transparency Law of the expected salary compensation range for this role.

Job Purpose

Provide lead support for the database team and operational support for the CLS internal Microsoft SQL database infrastructure and systems in the company’s 24x7 hosted environment. Provide remote and on-site support as part of the on-call support Rota. Work closely with other support teams to ensure that the database environments are fully supported and maintained in-order to meet the needs of the business. Oversee team resourcing, assign project work and provide technical leadership.

Essential Functions:

Strategic

• Ensure CLS internal database systems are managed to the highest standard by following industry best practice.
• Demonstrate leadership, inspire team members, create a positive and collaborative work environment, and demonstrate leadership by example.
• Identify database best practices to meet internal customer requirements that maximise the performance and reliability of the database management systems.
• Recommends performance and efficiency improvements for databases systems across the organisation
• Assists in the research and review of new database feature-functionality, supports proof-of-concept evaluations and enhancements to existing solutions.
• Demonstrate good problem management ownership and prevention of SLA breach under Incident / Problem Management processes.
• Actively contribute to the development of existing and new IT process and procedures to enhance service transition and service operation lifecycle stages.
• Demonstrate self-starter capabilities identifying areas of improvement and taking action in order to address.

Operational

• Provides Senior Operational Support for the Windows / SQL Server and Postgres database environment. Responsibilities include - Database monitoring, backup / restores, develop, and maintain daily automated checks/maintenance tasks, performance, and capacity management, creating optimisation plans and building new database instances, applying service packs and planning/performing database migrations. Manage and escalate as appropriate.
• Provides lead support for database team, managing team assignments, mentoring and developing database administrators. Provides technical leadership and represent team on design and solutioning meetings.
• Investigate and progress Incident, Service Request and Problem tickets. Manage and escalate as appropriate.
• Monitoring, Supporting, and deploying ETL jobs and SSIS packages.
• Configuring and managing RDS instances (AWS)
• Work with internal CLS teams (including ETL team and Quantitative Analysis Group) and external vendors to identify/propose solutions and support any fixes that are required as part of service improvement.
• Implements and maintains security policies and auditing compliance at the database level to ensure the protection of the firm’s sensitive data. Develops and adheres to patch management and upgrade strategies.
• Follow the CLS Change Management procedure and other standard practices in installing, configuring and supporting databases and relates items in Test and Production environments.
• Ensure that the BAU Service is prioritised and all faults, incidents and problems are responded to in an efficient manner without negatively impacting SLAs and reporting metrics in place.
• Upgrade or maintain software at a time when the impact to the business is minimised.
• Execute the failover for the database and application services as required. Maintain failover scripts and propose performance and efficiency improvements. Participate in regular on-site Disaster Recovery testing activities (up to 4 tests per year).
• Create, maintain, and review operational process and support documentation.
• Provide 24/7 on-call cover on a rotational shift basis. Participate in planned weekend work as required.
• As required, provide representation for DBA team’s Changes at the daily stand-up and weekly CAB meetings. Ensure other team’s Changes do not have an impact on the delivery of the database services.

Required Experience:

• Must have strong Operational Support experience of Microsoft SQL Server in an Enterprise Windows environment.
• Must have a solid understanding of database disaster recovery technologies including SAN / Mirroring / Always-On / SQL replication.
• Knowledge of database structure languages, such as SQL
• Experience working in AWS platform and utilizing RDS, SQL Server and Postgres.
• Operational DBA support experience on PostgresSQL.
• Must have proven leadership experience.
• Experience assigning BAU and project work to team ensuring deadlines are met.
• Ability to plan and implement technical changes without unexpected disruption to the service and with minimal oversight.
• Experience of providing production support activities for business-critical databases / applications.
• Strong documentation and technical writing skills.
• Must have excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Experience in working with ticket systems such as ServiceNow and a solid understanding of service priorities and SLA’s.
• Strong experience of providing cross training on technologies and operational processes to colleagues
• Ability to collaborate effectively with other technical and business teams to support the service.
• Have excellent time management and organisational skills
• Knowledge of ITIL framework (good understanding of Incident, Problem, Change processes)

Desired

• Knowledge of Banking systems and related industry standard practices
• Experience in working and configuring monitoring systems such as Dynatrace.
• PowerShell scripting experience
• Experience with Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
• Knowledge of EMC Networker / Rubrik

Qualifications / Certifications

Essential

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• Prior IT Operational Support experience across business-critical Production infrastructure, applications, and database services.

Desired

• Microsoft SQL 2016, 2019, 2022 certification
• AWS Certified Database — Specialty
• ITIL certification

Our Commitment To Employees:

At CLS, we celebrate inclusion and consider this to be one of our strongest assets. We are committed to fostering an environment in which everyone feels comfortable to be who they are, and inclusion is valued. All employees have access to our inclusive benefits, including:

• Holiday - UK/Asia: 25 holiday days and 3 ‘life days’ (in addition to bank holidays). US: 23 holiday days.
• 2 paid volunteer days so that you can actively support causes within your community that are important to you.
• Generous parental leave policies to ensure you can enjoy valuable time with your family.
• Parental transition coaching programmes and support services.
• Wellbeing and mental health support resources to ensure you are looking after yourself, and able to support others.
• Employee Networks (including our Women’s Forum, Black Employee Network and Pride Network) in support of our organisational commitment to embrace and always be learning more about inclusivity.
• Hybrid working to promote a healthy work/life balance, enabling employees to work collaboratively in the office when needed and work from home when they don’t.
• Active support of flexible working for all employees where possible.
• Monthly ‘Heads Down Days’ with no meetings across the whole company.
• Generous non-contributory pension provision for UK/Asia employees, and 401K match from CLS for US employees.
• Private medical insurance and dental coverage.
• Social events that give you opportunities to meet new people and broaden your network across the organisation.
• Annual flu vaccinations.
• Discounts and savings and cashback across a wide range of categories including health and retail for UK employees.
• Discounted Gym membership – Complete Body Gym Discount/Sweat equity program for US employees.
• All employees have access to Discover – our comprehensive learning platform with 1000+ courses from LinkedIn Learning.
• Access to frequent development sessions on a number of topics to help you be successful and develop your career at CLS.