SQL Server Database Engineer

This role is ideal for an engineer who enjoys owning production database environments, solving real-time issues, and improving system stability through automation, observability, and proactive performance optimization. You will play a key role in ensuring databases are highly available, resilient, and operating at scale-rather than building analytics platforms or data pipelines.

You’ll work both independently and collaboratively to deliver database improvements, troubleshoot complex issues, and support critical production systems, while applying best practices in SQL Server administration, automation, and reliability engineering.

The Work Itself:

Production Database Ownership (SRE Focus)

Own the health, stability, and reliability of SQL Server production environments. Continuously improve availability, monitoring, alerting, and incident response practices.

Performance Tuning and Reliability

Diagnose and resolve real-world production issues including slow queries, blocking, deadlocks, and resource contention. Optimize performance through advanced T-SQL tuning, indexing strategies, and execution plan analysis.

Monitoring, Alerting, and Incident Response

Build and maintain monitoring and alerting systems for database health and performance. Participate in on-call rotations, triaging and resolving incidents to minimize downtime and business impact.

Backup, Recovery, and High Availability

Own backup/restore processes, disaster recovery planning, and HA solutions (Always On, replication). Ensure systems are resilient and meet uptime expectations.

Automation and Operational Efficiency

Develop and maintain automation using PowerShell and SQL Server tooling (SQL Agent jobs, scripting, etc.) to streamline operations and reduce manual intervention.

Security and Compliance

Manage database access, permissions, and security configurations. Ensure adherence to data protection and operational security best practices.

Collaboration with Engineering Teams

Work closely with application engineers to support production database usage, improve query efficiency, and troubleshoot issues in real time.

This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in the office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.

This role requires 24/7 oncall production support.

This role is not eligible for employment-based be authorized to work in the United States without current or future sponsorship.

Visa requires at least 3 days in office, expectations of these days will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.

We are seeking a SQL Server Database Engineer with a strong focus on production operations and reliability engineering (SRE).

As part of this team, you will contribute to the plan, build, and run of Microsoft SQL Server database infrastructure, with a primary focus on system reliability, performance, and operational excellence.

This is a hands-on Microsoft SQL Server role requiring strong T-SQL and PowerShell skills, with an emphasis on production support, automation, and performance tuning., 2+ years of relevant work experience and a Bachelors degree, OR 5+ years of relevant work experience, * 2-5 years of hands-on experience with Microsoft SQL Server in production environments

• Strong experience with:
• T-SQL (query tuning, stored procedures, performance troubleshooting)
• PowerShell scripting for automation and operational tasks
• SQL Server performance tuning (indexing, execution plans)
• Experience supporting production systems or on-call environments
• Experience with backup/recovery and database maintenance
• Strong problem-solving skills in live operational scenarios

Nice to Have

• Experience with automation platforms (e.g., Ansible)
• Observability experience (Clickhouse, Grafana, Prometheus, Datadog, etc.)
• Exposure to SQL Server HA/DR (Always On, replication, clustering)
• Experience in SRE, DevOps, or operations-focused roles
• Cloud exposure (AWS or Google Cloud Platform)
• Familiarity with Git/GitHub
• Experience leveraging AI/code assistant tools for troubleshooting or automation

The estimated salary range for this position is $110,700.00 to $ 171,800.00 USD per year, which may include potential sales incentive payments (if applicable). Salary may vary depending on job-related factors which may include knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, this position may be eligible for bonus and equity.Visa has a comprehensive benefits package for which this position may be eligible that includes Medical, Dental, Vision, 401(k), FSA/HSA, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, and Wellness Program.

Visa is a world leader in payments technology, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories, dedicated to uplifting everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid.

At Visa, you’ll have the opportunity to create impact at scale - tackling meaningful challenges, growing your skills and seeing your contributions impact lives around the world.

Join Visa and do work that matters - to you, to your community, and to the world. Progress starts with you.