Senior Database Architect (Remote - UK)

Location: UK (remotely from home) Employment Type: Full Time Minimum Experience: 8 years relevant experience Compensation: Competitive Summary Black Rainbow is looking for a Senior Database Architect to join the growing Product Engineering team, with strong experience in optimising architecture, performance, and maintainability of the database underpinning our complex multi‑tier applications. Who We Are BlackRainbow was created to solve Investigation Case Management inefficiencies faced by investigators across Law Enforcement, Government Intelligence, and large enterprise organisations. Since launching our NIMBUS product, we have scaled rapidly and are establishing ourselves as the global standard for innovative, intelligence‑driven case management solutions. Our team brings decades of experience working with investigators in over forty countries, enabling us to understand real‑world investigative challenges and build software that genuinely improves how people work. What We Are Looking For We are seeking a Senior Database Architect who combines deep database expertise with strong communication skills and an ability to work closely with development teams and customers. This role is central to optimising the architecture, performance, and maintainability of the databases underpinning our complex multi‑tier applications. We’re looking for a true DBA specialist - not just a developer with SQL knowledge - but someone with proven experience designing scalable architectures, solving complex SQL performance problems, and guiding customers through best practices across both cloud and on‑prem deployments. You will be involved in the full lifecycle of our software delivery: from reviewing database changes, supporting integration testing, and contributing to architectural improvements, through to advising customers and partners on performance, optimisation, maintenance, and troubleshooting. Key Responsibilities Database Design, Architecture & Optimisation

• Design, configure, and optimise our Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL databases for scalability, performance, resilience, and cost‑efficiency.
• Improve existing database architecture, indexing strategies, and schema design to support both SaaS and on‑prem installations.
• Investigate and resolve complex SQL issues including slow queries, blocking, deadlocks, and execution‑plan inefficiencies.
• Work with different ways the application interacts with the database, including:

• .NET Core Entity Framework
• Stored procedures
• Custom SQL generation

• Manage storage optimisation, capacity planning, and performance tuning across large datasets.
• Support multi‑tenant architectures and encrypted‑data designs where applicable.

Collaboration With Development Teams

• Work daily with our agile product & engineering teams to ensure tight integration between application logic and underlying data structures.
• Participate in code reviews, database change reviews, and architectural discussions.
• Support integration tests using Docker‑based database instances.
• Contribute to deployment processes using dacpacs, bacpacs, and established database‑change pipelines (MS Devops).
• Engage in the full “end‑to‑end” story lifecycle to ensure database considerations are included from design through to delivery.
• Attend daily standup with whole team.

Customer Advisory & Support

• Act as a trusted technical advisor for customers and partners, helping them diagnose issues, optimise configurations, and adopt best practices.
• Investigate database performance and maintenance issues (sometimes without direct access) using logs, telemetry, exported data, and customer‑provided information.
• Guide customers on security, data management, maintenance routines, and long‑term optimisation strategies.
• Feed insights from customer environments back into the core product to drive continuous improvement.
• Advise customers on database sizing and growth planning, including capacity forecasting, storage optimisation, and ensuring deployments are appropriately scaled for current and future workloads.

Monitoring & Operational Excellence

• Develop and enhance monitoring strategies across SQL Server and Azure SQL, including:

• Query performance
• Index usage and fragmentation analysis
• AppInsights analysis
• Deadlock analysis
• Execution‑plan evaluation

• Track cost indicators (particularly in Azure) to recommend efficient storage and compute configurations.
• Support environments across multiple versions of Microsoft SQL Server and the latest Azure SQL platforms.

Essential Requirements

• Eligible to work in the UK (no sponsorship available).
• Able to meet vetting requirements for Security Clearance (SC) and NPPV3.
• 8+ years hands‑on DBA experience within large and complex systems.
• Expert‑level knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL.
• Experience supporting multi‑tier architectures (databases, app servers, web, mobile).
• Highly proficient in performance optimisation: indexing strategies, execution‑plan analysis, deadlock resolution, and efficient SQL design.
• Familiarity with DevOps concepts and agile/scrum delivery environments.
• Ability to interpret and optimise SQL generated by .NET Entity Framework Core, including understanding how LINQ expressions translate into database queries.
• Experience working with SQL Server Database Projects in Visual Studio, including contributing to schema changes as part of a larger C# application.
• Experience designing and optimising granular, SQL‑level permission models, ensuring that complex security predicates perform efficiently at scale.
• Experience managing storage, cost optimisation, and monitoring in Azure.
• Strong understanding of database access security, roles, and complex permission schemes.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to document changes and explain decisions clearly.
• Strong teamwork skills and ability to be customer‑facing when required.
• Solid understanding of software architecture and how database design impacts application behaviour.
• Ability to work in a fast‑moving, dynamic, agile environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant technical field or equivalent professional experience.

Desirable Requirements

• Experience with multi‑tenant database solutions.
• Experience working with encrypted datasets.
• Knowledge of PostgreSQL.
• Exposure to AWS S3.
• Experience with Power BI (helpful, but not essential).

WHY JOIN BLACKRAINBOW? BlackRainbow is ambitious, driven and deeply cares about the ability to make a difference to people’s lives with our software. Be a part of our team as we scale up. Some Of Our Benefits Black Rainbow is ambitious, driven and deeply cares about the ability to make a difference to people’s lives with our software. Be a part of our small but powerful team as we scale up. Some Of Our Benefits

• Competitive salary
• Fully remote working
• Flexible working hours
• 25 days annual leave (plus public holidays)
• Pension
• Private healthcare (including family cover)
• Training and professional development support

If you have the skills and experience plus the drive and ambition to be successful in this role, please apply via the BambooHR link.