Due to the critical nature of the systems supported by this role, the Senior Database Engineer is required to perform a significant portion of maintenance, deployments, upgrades, and troubleshooting activities outside of standard business hours. Most production systems cannot be taken offline during the normal workday, and therefore planned work is typically scheduled after 9:00 PM on weekdays and frequently over weekends. The position requires flexibility to support after‑hours changes, participate in scheduled maintenance windows, and respond to urgent issues that may arise during non‑business hours. While daytime work will occur for planning, design, and collaboration, the successful candidate must be comfortable with a work pattern that includes regular evening and weekend responsibilities to ensure system stability and availability.

Ready To Go Further?
Saia is a different kind of logistics and transportation company. We do things the right way. You‘ll see it in our commitment to our people, customers, and community. You‘ll feel it in the support you get on day one – from leadership and from your team. A job with Saia is packed with opportunity – from learning new skills and advancing to competitive compensation and great benefits. It's all here and it’s exactly what going further is all about.

Position Summary

The Senior Database Engineer is responsible for architecting, implementing, and optimizing enterprise‑grade data platforms built on SQL Server and modern cloud technologies. This role ensures the reliability, performance, security, and scalability of mission‑critical databases that support core business applications and analytics. The engineer provides technical leadership in database design, cloud migration, automation, and performance engineering, while driving best practices across development, DevOps, and infrastructure teams. By combining deep SQL Server expertise with cloud‑native engineering skills, this position plays a key role in advancing the organization’s data strategy, improving operational efficiency, and enabling high‑quality, data‑driven decision‑making.

Major Tasks and Responsibilities

• Database Design & Architecture - This is foundational work that prevents performance issues later.
  - Designing relational schemas and data models
  - Normalization/denormalization decisions
  - Choosing storage strategies (partitioning, clustering, indexing)
  - Planning for scalability and future growth (HUGE)
• Database Administration, Reliability & Operations
  - Oversee SQL Server installation, configuration, clustering, Always On availability groups, and failover strategies.
  - Manage capacity planning, storage optimization, and high‑availability/disaster‑recovery (HA/DR) architectures.
  - Ensure 24/7 reliability for mission‑critical workloads through proactive monitoring and alerting.
• Performance Engineering & Troubleshooting
  - Diagnose and resolve complex performance issues involving blocking, deadlocks, I/O bottlenecks, and memory pressure.
  - Conduct deep analysis using DMVs, Extended Events, Query Store, and cloud monitoring tools.
  - Partner with application architects to optimize data access patterns and system design
• Documentation, Standards & Continuous Improvement
  - Diagnose and resolve complex performance issues involving blocking, deadlocks, I/O bottlenecks, and memory pressure.
  - Conduct deep analysis using DMVs, Extended Events, Query Store, and cloud monitoring tools.
  - Partner with application architects to optimize data access patterns and system design

Qualifications

• Minimum Training and Education Required 7+ years experience

• Preferred Job Experience• 7+ years of hands‑on experience working with Microsoft SQL Server in enterprise environments

• Preferred Job Skills and/or Certifications• Strong understanding of HA/DR technologies, including Always On Availability Groups, clustering, and backup/restore strategies

Benefits
At Saia, your success is our success! That’s why we work hard to provide you with what you need to build an awesome career. We are committed to rewarding superior employee performance so that when you work hard, your achievements won’t go unnoticed.

Make Your Move
At Saia, our people are the reason we’ve been successful for over a century in the industry. Together, we’ve created a positive culture that’s driven by our core values – like dignity and respect, a customer-first approach, safety and more. With hundreds of terminals across the country and growing, we’re always looking for more collaborative and motivated individuals to join our team. So, if you’re ready to put your career on a solid path, let’s go further.

Saia is an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.