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Principal SQL Server Database Administrator

Boston/Dedham, Massachusetts, United States; Chicago, Illinois, United States; Richmond, Virginia, United States

Join the Market Leader in Electric Power Data and Analytics Solutions

The electrical grid is the largest and most complicated machine ever built. Yes Energy’s industry-leading electric power trading analytics software provides real-time visibility into the massive amount of data generated by the North American electrical grid daily. Our unique and innovative view of the data informs real-time trading decisions and mid-to-long-term investment decisions that keep utility prices low, support the energy transition, and keep the grid running. It’s both challenging work and work with a purpose.

Be a part of our successful, growing business during international transformation.

 

Position Summary

The Principal SQL Server Database Architect will be a strategic and technical leader within the Product Technology Services organization, responsible for architecting, optimizing, and future-proofing Yes Energy’s database ecosystem. This role will focus on advanced performance tuning, query optimization, indexing strategies, and data partitioning across our SQL Server environments.

The Principal DBA will combine deep SQL Server expertise with a strategic mindset, collaborating with senior technology leadership to define the long-term roadmap for database technologies across products, environments, and global regions.  We seek a hands-on database expert with deep knowledge of on-disk structures, including rowstore and columnstore tables, and experience maintaining high availability in both on-premises and cloud environments. The ideal candidate will thrive on improving system performance through interactive changes to queries and scheduled processes, supporting complex analytical workloads, and collaborating with application and data engineering teams to continuously enhance database reliability and efficiency.  This role goes beyond operational excellence—it drives enterprise-wide data platform strategy, database modernization initiatives, and cross-team data architecture alignment to ensure reliability, scalability, and innovation.

Yes Energy uses several database technologies, including Oracle, SQL Server, and MySQL; this position will lead the SQL Server expertise and join a senior group of database professionals at the heart of the Yes Energy product engine. SQL Server and Azure SQL are used extensively for OLTP and OLAP situations, and we hope to bring uniformity, consistency, and world-class techniques to these environments across various product lines.  

Position Details

  • Salary range: $170,000 - $190,000; depending on experience and location
  • Location: Boston/Dedham, MA; Chicago, IL,  Richmond, VA
  • Full-time
  • Hybrid; required to work in the office 2–3 days per week
  • Reporting to: Vice President, Technology
  • Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States without the need for visa sponsorship.

Primary Responsibilities:

Technology Leadership

  • Define and lead the enterprise Microsoft database strategy, including SQL Server and emerging data platforms such as Azure SQL, Synapse Analytics, and cloud-native architectures.
  • Partner with Technology and Product leadership to align database architecture with long-term business objectives, product scalability goals, and reliability standards.
  • Implement and tune table partitioning, indexing strategies, and columnstore indexes for analytical workloads.
  • Conduct deep-dive query performance analysis and tuning to ensure optimal response times and resource utilization.
  • Participate in planning and executing database upgrades, patching, and migrations to newer SQL Server versions or Azure SQL platforms.
  • Design and implement CI/CD pipelines for database deployment and automation, leveraging modern tools such as Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or Octopus Deploy to ensure reliable, version-controlled changes.
  • Ensure high availability and disaster recovery through SQL Server Always On Availability Groups, failover clustering, and replication.
  • Design and implement maintenance strategies, backups, restores, and performance baselines.
  • Evaluate and recommend database configuration changes, new technology purchases, and tuning techniques.

Collaboration and Mentoring

  • Serve as a mentor and technical advisor to Senior DBAs, Data Engineers, and Application Developers, promoting best practices and fostering technical growth.
  • Lead cross-functional collaboration with software engineering, DevOps, and analytics teams to ensure seamless integration between application and database layers.
  • Collaborate closely with developers to review and optimize T-SQL code, stored procedures, and schema design.
  • Participate in Yes Energy’s 24/7 on-call support rotation for critical database systems as needed.
  • Perform other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

  • 10+ years of hands-on experience as a SQL Server Database Administrator in large-scale, high-transaction environments with at least three of those years in Azure.
  • Expert-level knowledge of SQL Server internals, including storage structures, buffer management, query execution plans, and statistics, partitioning, and index design, including  columnstore indexes.
  • Strong experience with SQL Server Always On, replication, and backup/recovery strategies.
  • Skilled in automation, observability, and DevOps integration (PowerShell, Python, Azure DevOps, Terraform, or equivalent).
  • Proficiency in T-SQL, database modeling, and schema design.
  • Familiarity with data warehousing concepts and solutions such as Synapse Analytics or Snowflake.
  • Experience in both on-premises and cloud (Azure) database management environments.
  • Experience working in agile development environments is a plus.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience designing multi-region, highly available architectures across Azure and hybrid cloud environments.
  • Track record of thought leadership in database engineering—such as publishing, presenting, or mentoring within professional communities.
  • Familiarity with modern data governance frameworks, data catalogs, and metadata management.
  • Certification(s) in Microsoft SQL Server, Azure Database Administration, or related areas.

Keywords

Database Administration, SQL Server, Columnstore, Indexing, Partitioning, Query Tuning, Always On, High Availability, T-SQL, Azure SQL, Synapse, Data Warehousing, Performance Optimization, CDC, Replication, Data Quality

 

At Yes Energy, we value connecting directly with candidates. We kindly ask that third-party recruiters and agencies not submit resumes, as we are not open to external recruiting partnerships.

 

ABOUT YES ENERGY

Overview

Yes Energy delivers real-time market data and electric power trading decision solutions.  Over 1,000 market participants use Yes Energy solutions daily.  The business is a leader in all aspects of information content collection and management, developing and delivering data and market analytics solutions. Since its inception in 2008, Yes Energy has become a trusted and respected supplier of innovative and reliable solutions focused on the needs of power market analysts, traders, and trade managers.  Yes Energy has a team of over 350 amazing professionals in Boulder, CO (HQ); Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Glendora, CA; Richmond, VA; London, United Kingdom; Auckland, New Zealand, Tokyo, Japan; and Bucharest, Romania.

Culture

Yes Energy has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Colorado, and we have the culture to prove it. At Yes Energy, we care about saying “Yes” to customers. We like to listen, learn, and develop our solutions in line with their needs. We think about customers as business partners, and when we help them be more successful … we are more successful, too.

Around the office, our culture is driven by some pretty fundamental values that we’re proud of:

  • We love innovation and solving tough challenges;
  • We are “high standards people” who combine passion and pride with hard work and rewards of all kinds-- in an ethic that is consistent across the company;
  • We’re team-focused with a flat hierarchy-- we work in small teams on well-defined projects that directly impact the success of the business;
  • We play to the strengths and experience of each person while each of us also works along a continuum of roles adjacent to our focus area.  This presents the challenge of maintaining a broad set of skills as well as an opportunity to learn and contribute in many ways; 
  • We are constantly growing. Professional development happens every day and every year.

Compensation and Benefits

We offer highly competitive salaries and real bonuses that are achievable and that you can impact. Our benefits package is also very competitive, including medical insurance, a 401 (k) Plan with matching, flexible vacation, and flexible work schedules. Yes Energy encourages and funds investment in both formal and informal professional development.

At Yes Energy, we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace. If you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t perfectly align with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

In accordance with Colorado law, the range provided is Yes Energy’s reasonable estimate of the base compensation for this role. The actual amount may be higher or lower based on non-discriminatory factors such as location, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Yes Energy provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Yes Energy complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location where the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

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