Database and Infrastructure Engineer

The Database Infrastructure Engineer is responsible for the day-to-day administration, performance and resilience of the Microsoft SQL Server estate. This estate supports the software platform we provide to our customers, as well as our internal systems. The role also supports the Windows and Active Directory infrastructure around it. This is a hands-on, deeply technical role in a regulated financial services environment. Our platform is directly accessed by customers and connected to third-party trading, settlement and market data services.

The successful candidate will bring strong SQL Server database administration skills together with solid Windows Server, Active Directory and Azure experience. They will be comfortable owning business-critical database changes and migrations end-to-end, working directly with customers, and producing high-quality documentation for the wider team and for our audit and compliance obligations.

Key Responsibilities

• Administering and supporting the Microsoft SQL Server estate, including installation, configuration, patching, upgrades and day-to-day operational support
• Maintaining our SQL Server high availability and disaster recovery configurations, including Always On availability groups and failover clustering
• Monitoring and tuning database performance, including query optimisation, indexing, statistics and capacity planning
• Managing database security, logins, roles and permissions in line with least-privilege principles and audit requirements
• Designing, running and maintaining SQL Agent jobs, maintenance plans and database integrity checks
• Testing and maintaining backups and DR processes (including invocation testing) so they meet contracted RPO/RTO obligations
• Supporting database migrations and upgrades, including moving workloads towards Azure-native services where appropriate
• Administering and maintaining Active Directory, including trusts, Kerberos delegation (including SQL Server SPNs and service accounts), certificate services and certificate lifecycle management
• Administering the Windows Server and IIS infrastructure that hosts our platform, including routine patching and maintenance
• Maintaining our software and associated components on Third Platform Services (TPS)
• Working alongside group information security to make sure the database and server estate is configured and maintained in line with security policies, control frameworks and audit requirements, and helping to fix any risks and vulnerabilities found
• Responding to IT audit and customer due-diligence information requests and providing supporting evidence
• Managing relationships with third-party vendors and suppliers, including technical liaison, escalations and coordinating delivery of changes
• Producing and maintaining clear technical documentation, runbooks and knowledgebase articles to support the team and meet audit requirements
• Monitoring and responding to alerts from the database, infrastructure and monitoring platforms
• Out-of-hours work for routine maintenance and occasional project work
• Working on other IT projects relating to databases, infrastructure and security as required
• Contributing to team planning

Key attributes and Skills

Essential

• Proven experience in a similar technical role, with a significant focus on Microsoft SQL Server database administration
• Experience in an environment providing and supporting B2B customer-facing technology
• Experience working within a regulated or externally audited industry, with an understanding of contractual obligations and control frameworks such as ISO 27001, SOC 2 / ISAE 3402 / AAF, and CIS benchmarks/controls (or equivalents such as NIST)
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Self-motivated, and capable of tackling complex projects either on their own or as part of a team
• Able to work collaboratively across different departments/teams with differing technical capabilities, and with external customers and vendors, to deliver effective solutions
• Microsoft SQL Server administration in production environments, ideally SQL Server 2022: installation and patching, backup/restore and point-in-time recovery, security/permissions, SQL Agent job management, and performance tuning (query optimisation, indexing, execution plans)
• Proficiency in T-SQL for writing, reviewing and troubleshooting queries, stored procedures and maintenance scripts
• Strong Windows Server administration
• Advanced Active Directory administration, including trusts, Kerberos delegation and certificate management
• Knowledge of Windows-based IIS application administration
• PowerShell scripting
• Experience with backup and DR tools and processes
• Strong documentation skills and experience managing third-party vendors/suppliers

Desirable

• SQL Server high availability and disaster recovery design: e.g. Always On availability groups, clustering, log shipping
• Azure SQL experience: Azure SQL Database and/or Azure SQL Managed Instance, including migration from SQL Server on VMs
• Basic Microsoft Azure administration: VMs, storage, networking fundamentals and resource management
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM administration
• ADFS administration
• Redgate SQL Monitor (or similar SQL monitoring/tooling, e.g. the wider Redgate toolset)
• PostgreSQL administration
• Microsoft BizTalk Server administration
• Microsoft SharePoint Server administration
• Fortinet/FortiGate firewall administration
• Experience with PRTG, Grafana, or similar monitoring platforms
• Atlassian suite: Jira ticketing and project management, Confluence documentation
• Industry-specific experience: payment/settlement gateways (e.g. CREST/Euroclear), trading interfaces, CASS, and similar financial-market infrastructure
• Wealth management / stockbroking domain knowledge

A little about us
We’re the Nucleus Financial Platforms group and we help make retirement more rewarding.

People come first - whether it’s our colleagues, or the advisers and customers we support, we know that working in partnership and collaboration leads to the best outcomes. Together, we’ve shaped the platform to how it is today. We work hard, and we celebrate hard too.

Our ambition is to create a platform with a difference, putting the customer centre stage meant tearing up the rule book and starting from scratch. We’ve come a long way since then, but our mission remains just as focused. That’s why our culture, values, and social responsibility are things we keep at the top of our agenda – because we know they matter and have a big impact.

Our culture is one of the many things that sets us apart from the pack. We want to have an environment where our people feel that they can make a real difference, know they’ll be rewarded for their efforts and more importantly, enjoy themselves at work.

Inclusion and diversity at Nucleus
As with most things in life, who cares, wins. We really care about inclusion.
For us it’s not a tick box exercise; inclusion and diversity are embedded in our culture and everything we do. It’s a commercial imperative. It isn’t about being PC. It’s about being future-relevant and durable. We owe it to ourselves and the industry to ensure we are playing our part in creating a fair, balanced and transparent financial services sector.

More diversity means broader experience, a wider set of perspectives and a better collective ability to problem-solve. And it means being more representative of customer groups, which supports areas such as product development.

At Nucleus, we offer a generous blend of benefits for the things that really matter to our people, including a non-contributory pension, bonus, enhanced parental leave, paid time off for emergencies, health and wellbeing initiatives and flexible working options.