Database Engineer – AI

Sonata Software•San Antonio, TX

5d•Remote

About The Position

Sonata Software is seeking a Senior Database Engineer to support AI-powered SQL agents and ensure that AI-generated database queries, scripts, and changes are correct, performant, secure, and safe. The role focuses on Microsoft SQL Server, T-SQL, database performance tuning, dependency analysis, and Azure SQL Managed Instance. The position is remote in Brazil and requires 8+ years of experience. The engineer will develop and optimize database objects and SQL, operate and improve Azure SQL Managed Instance databases, and assess the effects of database changes across schemas, dependent objects, and applications. The role also works with AI and backend engineers to improve SQL generation, schema understanding, agent context retrieval, error handling, feedback mechanisms, metadata integration, and database workflow automation. It includes validating AI-generated SQL, building evaluation and testing frameworks, implementing safeguards, and maintaining enterprise-aligned security, auditing, backup, recovery, version-control, and deployment practices. Sonata Software describes itself as an AI-first modernization engineering company delivering AI-led modernization across cloud, data, AI, Dynamics, test automation, and managed services. It is headquartered in Bengaluru, India, and reports more than $1.2 billion in revenue and 6,400+ AI engineers supporting global delivery. Sonata is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Requirements

At least 8 years of hands-on database engineering experience, with deep expertise in Microsoft SQL Server and T-SQL.
Strong experience developing and optimizing complex stored procedures, functions, views, triggers, indexes, and queries.
Expertise in SQL performance tuning, execution plans, query optimization, deadlock analysis, and troubleshooting.
Strong understanding of database architecture, schema design, object dependencies, transactions, and data integrity.
Hands-on experience with Azure SQL Managed Instance, including performance optimization and operational support.
Experience reviewing and validating database scripts and assessing the impact of database changes across dependent objects and applications.
Strong understanding of database security, access controls, auditing, SQL injection prevention, and safe execution practices.
Ability to identify hallucinated database objects, incorrect business logic, inefficient queries, and unsafe operations in AI-generated SQL.
Experience with database testing, version control, CI/CD pipelines, and controlled database deployments.

Nice To Haves

Practical exposure to AI/LLM-powered applications, text-to-SQL solutions, AI coding assistants, or AI-driven database automation.
Mortgage knowledge.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, and maintain complex SQL queries, stored procedures, functions, views, triggers, indexes, and other database objects.
Perform advanced SQL performance tuning, execution plan analysis, indexing optimization, deadlock investigation, and database bottleneck resolution.
Analyze database schemas, object dependencies, relationships, and business logic to assess the impact of database changes.
Manage and optimize databases on Azure SQL Managed Instance, including performance monitoring, troubleshooting, migration, and deployment.
Enhance AI-powered SQL agents, improving SQL generation, schema understanding, query optimization, and database workflow automation.
Validate AI-generated SQL for syntactic correctness, business logic accuracy, performance, data integrity, and compatibility with the target environment.
Implement safety controls to prevent destructive SQL operations, unauthorized data access, unintended data modifications, and production-impacting changes.
Develop automated evaluation and testing frameworks to measure SQL agent accuracy, reliability, execution correctness, and safety.
Collaborate with AI and backend engineers to improve agent context retrieval, error handling, feedback mechanisms, and database metadata integration.
Establish database security, auditing, backup, recovery, version control, and deployment practices aligned with enterprise standards.