Senior Database Engineer

We are seeking a Senior Database Engineer for a short-term, part-time project to refine our data infrastructure. You will architect a scalable analytics foundation and optimize transactional performance for a platform trusted by 300+ industry leaders. This role offers full technical ownership and a skip-the-bureaucracy environment, allowing you to implement your own expert recommendations. It is a perfect high-impact contract for those who value professional autonomy and a flexible schedule

A new team member will be in charge of:

• Designing and standing up a reporting/analytics data warehouse (preferably on Azure) to support business intelligence and analytical workloads.
• Defining dimensional and/or analytical schemas that enable reliable reporting and scalable querying.
• Building and maintaining data pipelines to move and transform data from source systems into the warehouse (e.g., using Azure Data Factory / Synapse or similar).
• Auditing and improving indexing strategy for Azure SQL / SQL Server to ensure consistent performance at scale.
• Optimizing queries through execution plan analysis, refactoring, and targeted tuning.
• Designing and implementing caching strategies where appropriate to reduce load and improve response times.
• Applying partitioning and sharding approaches when needed to support growth and throughput.
• Improving schema design for performance, maintainability, and long-term evolution of the product.
• Designing and optimizing complex indexed views and other advanced SQL Server features.
• Collaborating with a technical team by clearly communicating findings, trade-offs, and implementation plans.

Does this relate to you?

• 5+ years of commercial experience in database engineering, data warehousing, or a similar role.
• Strong SQL Server / Azure SQL expertise, including performance tuning, schema design, and execution plan analysis.
• Hands-on experience with Azure data services such as Azure SQL, Azure Data Factory, Synapse, or equivalent tools.
• Proven experience designing and building data warehouses and analytics-ready data models.
• Ability to work independently end-to-end: assessing current state, making recommendations, and executing implementations.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical findings and recommendations to a technical audience.
• Experience with SaaS transactional databases at scale is a plus.
• Azure AI Search experience (implementing or designing search solutions) is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with vector databases, especially for AI/ML workloads, is a plus.
• Supporting search and AI-driven use cases by contributing to Azure AI Search design/implementation (preferred) and exploring vector database approaches (a plus).