Freelance Remote Sql Server Dba Jobs (NOW HIRING)

CalAmp's K-12 transportation platform tracks the buses that move ~1 million students every school day across 400+ North American school districts. We run Microsoft SQL Server self-hosted on AWS EC2 - 9 production instances, 600+ customer databases, more than a billion rows of operational data, and growing. (An eventual move to AWS RDS is on the table as a future direction, not a near-term plan.)

We're hiring a hands-on Database Engineer with strong production experience who is ready to grow into architecture, automation, and modern engineering practices.

Equal Employment OpportunityCalAmp is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. Employment decisions are based on qualifications, merit, and business needs.

What you'll work on

Performance - the daily craft. Diagnose and fix slow queries, plan regressions, and locking storms across 9 SQL Server instances supporting customer-facing operations. You'll inherit a decade of accumulated SQL - your first 90 days are about understanding it before re-architecting it.

Reporting replica architecture. We need to separate analytical workload from operational SQL Server before it costs us customer SLAs. You'll lead the design - likely AWS DMS feeding a multi-tenant Aurora PostgreSQL store, but the call is yours after scoping. This is a flagship project, not a maintenance task.

Archival. Sound data retention strategy across 600+ customer DBs that doesn't degrade restore-from-backup integrity. You'll define the policy and own the automation.

AWS cost. SQL Server EE licensing on EC2 isn't cheap. There's measurable savings on the table for a DBA/Database Engineer who knows where to look - edition choice, reserved instances, right-sizing, replica strategy.

Schema migrations and ETL. Schema-change process across all customer DBs. Today this is partially manual; the goal is to make it automated, reliable, and low-risk.

Database SME for engineering - a core part of this role. You're the subject-matter expert who reviews every schema change from developers before it ships, and you bring actionable design insight - not just approvals. Profile and optimize queries and stored procedures alongside the engineers writing them. You're the "is this going to scale?" voice in design reviews - adding insight where it counts, not gatekeeping for the sake of it.

On-call rotation. Light by industry standards: rotation runs once every five weeks, with on-call hours from 6 AM to 11 PM Eastern. We try to keep paging events rare; we expect you to push us toward making them rarer.

What's different about this team

We use AI tools across the development lifecycle - including query analysis, schema changes, runbook authoring, and operational workflows. Our engineers ship more code per sprint with Claude Code as a pair-programmer, and we expect our DBA to do the equivalent for database work. We value candidates who are open to integrating AI into their workflow to improve speed and quality. If it means restructuring how you operate, we want to talk.

We're not hiring "AI experience" as a checkbox. We're hiring people willing to rethink their craft.

Must-haves

• 4-8 years of hands-on DBA / Database Engineering experience, meaningful share on SQL Server
• Database SME mindset - you've reviewed engineering schema changes, contributed design insight in code/architecture reviews, and partnered with developers (not gatekept them). This is a core part of the role, not a side responsibility.
• PostgreSQL proficiency - or willingness to develop it (aligned to future reporting architecture)
• Cloud database experience on AWS - self-hosted SQL Server on EC2 today; RDS familiarity is a plus given a possible future migration
• Performance tuning track record - you can talk through specific queries you fixed and how
• Strong SQL: query writing, plan reading, index design, locking and isolation
• Comfort scripting in Python or PowerShell for automation
• Linux and Windows both
• HA / replication topologies (Always On, log shipping, transactional)
• Strong written communication - this is an opinionated engineering team; you'll write proposals and defend them
• Bachelor's in CS, Information Systems, or equivalent practical track

Strong pluses

• Multi-tenant SaaS data architectures (per-customer databases or shared schemas)
• AWS DMS or other CDC replication experience
• Aurora PostgreSQL
• AWS cost optimization (Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, sizing)
• Datadog, Dynatrace, or similar APM
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools (helpful but not required)
• Background in operationally-critical SaaS (transportation, healthcare, finance)

What we don't expect

You don't need K-12 domain experience. You don't need MongoDB. You don't need IoT background. Show up curious; we'll teach the domain.

Logistics

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the US on a permanent basis. We are unable to sponsor at this time.

If this is the right fit, apply now - interviews this week and next.