Manager Database Operations

No THIRD PARTIES - DIRECT HIRE- CANNOT SPONSOR CANDIDATES AT THIS TIME. We are seeking an experienced Remote Database Operations Manager to lead a talented 5–6 person team and bring strategic direction, operational stability, and a continuous improvement mindset to our database environment. This role is remote.You will oversee a mixed cloud and on-premises database estate of 250+ databases running on Azure, working alongside infrastructure and application teams to stabilize operations, reduce manual toil, and drive meaningful automation. If you thrive in environments that blend leadership with hands-on technical engagement — and you enjoy building process where there is room to improve — this role is for you.What You’ll DoLead and mentor a team of 5–6 database professionals through regular 1:1s, performance coaching, and prioritization support (~30–40% of time)Drive strategic database initiatives including migrations, upgrades, DR modernization, and monitoring improvements (~20–30% of time)Provide hands-on operational support during incidents, performance issues, and escalations; champion automation to reduce manual processesReview and approve team-authored documentation — runbooks, script libraries, lessons learned, and Confluence wikis — ensuring clarity and discoverabilityPartner with the Application Operations Manager on budget planning, vendor management, and tooling decisionsTranslate noisy alerting into actionable, trend-aware monitoring — reduce false positives and build threshold-based alerting disciplineOwn the ActiveBatch scheduling environment and drive the cleanup and documentation effort already underwayCommunicate project status and technical recommendations to infrastructure and application leadershipWhat We’re Looking For6+ years of progressive experience in database administration, database operations, or a closely related fieldFoundational to strong Azure database experience; familiarity with both cloud-hosted and on-premises SQL environmentsPrior people management, team lead, or informal mentorship experience; ability to motivate and develop technical staffWorking knowledge of DR, replication concepts, and database migration patterns (modernization experience a plus)Comfortable with monitoring and scheduling tooling; experience with Redgate Monitor, ActiveBatch, or comparable platforms is a plusCurious, process-oriented mindset — someone who asks “why are we doing this manually?” and follows through on fixing itStrong communicator who can interface with both technical teams and non-technical leadershipThe EnvironmentAzure-first Microsoft shop with a mix of cloud and on-premises infrastructure (~50 on-prem, ~200 cloud databases). They do not support AWS at this time. Tools: ActiveBatch v14, Redgate Monitor, Confluence, ServiceNowScale: 250+ total databases, eight on-prem bare-metal chassis, five replication-critical systemsOngoing DR and replication modernization; active cleanup of scheduling and monitoring technical debt