Manager, IT - DBA

Sammons Financial Group • West Des Moines, IA

27d

About The Position

Lead the enterprise Database Administration team responsible for the availability, performance, security, recoverability, and lifecycle management of Sammons Financial Group database platforms. This is a hands-on technical leadership role that develops people and operational practices while directly contributing to architecture, troubleshooting, automation, upgrades, migrations, and complex production support.

Requirements

• Minimum 5 years' applicable experience leading and/or directing a representative IT planning, application development, support and/or infrastructure organization Preferred
• Demonstrated consistent leadership effectiveness in technology planning, operations, implementation delivery and development
• Working knowledge of business processes, management, budgeting, and business office operations and end to end integration models; Must be aware of industry recognized best practices
• Knowledge of systems management, hardware platforms, enterprise software applications, and outsourced systems, vendor management, including management of offshore/near shore resources with some awareness of technology and related business trends; Experience and ability in managing systems complexity with positive outcomes
• Demonstrated, proven understanding and track record of high quality project management and execution
• Working knowledge of applicable industry laws and regulations as they relate to IT
• Established leadership track record of effective people management skills and practices
• Understands negotiating and influencing leadership skills
• Demonstrated ability to present and adapt ideas in business-friendly and user-friendly language

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor's Degree in the field of Computer Science, Information Systems, or Business Administration or equivalent work experience Preferred
• Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or Business Administration with technology as a core component or equivalent work experiences Preferred

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, develop, and retain a team of database administrators; set priorities, performance expectations, career development plans, and succession strategies, and recruit talent as needed.
• Remain hands-on as a senior database administrator and escalation point for complex incidents, performance issues, outages, and root-cause analysis, including after-hours support when required.
• Own the operational health of enterprise database platforms across on-premises and cloud environments, including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Snowflake, MongoDB, and other database technologies.
• Establish and enforce standards for database architecture, configuration, security, access control, data protection, backup and recovery, high availability, disaster recovery, monitoring, and alerting.
• Lead database upgrades, migrations, patching, platform modernization, cloud adoption, consolidation, and decommissioning with tested implementation, validation, and rollback plans.
• Direct and participate in performance tuning, capacity planning, indexing and query optimization, resilience testing, and proactive problem prevention.
• Drive automation of provisioning, monitoring, maintenance, patching, access administration, and compliance evidence to improve efficiency and reduce operational risk.
• Develop and maintain database monitoring and alerting capabilities, operational dashboards, on-call readiness, runbooks, troubleshooting guides, and support procedures.
• Use Azure DevOps (ADO) to create, prioritize, assign, and maintain work items for service requests, incidents, operational activities, projects, remediation, and technical debt; ensure estimates, actual effort or time spent, status, dependencies, decisions, and completion evidence are accurately recorded and reconciled with related Ivanti or change records as applicable.
• Lead response to database incidents and service problems, ensure timely stakeholder communication, and drive permanent corrective actions through incident, problem, and change management practices.
• Partner with Cybersecurity and Risk teams to manage role-based access, privileged and service accounts, security findings, vulnerability remediation, audit evidence, and segregation-of-duties requirements.
• Collaborate with application development, enterprise data and integration, analytics, infrastructure, cloud, architecture, and business teams to design and deliver reliable database solutions.
• Oversee database-adjacent platforms and services assigned to the team, including reporting services and ETL/ELT data-load technologies.
• Define database technology roadmaps and lifecycle plans; evaluate new capabilities and recommend investments that improve scalability, reliability, security, supportability, and cost effectiveness.
• Manage database vendors, licensing, support agreements, renewals, and professional services at the operational and project levels.
• Manage staffing, workload, budget, contractors, and offshore or nearshore resources; forecast skills and capacity required to meet operational and project commitments.
• Create, maintain, and govern clear technical and operational documentation in ADO Wiki and other approved repositories, including database inventories, ownership records, architecture diagrams, configurations, standards, runbooks, standard operating procedures, troubleshooting guidance, decision records, knowledge-transfer materials, and cross-training content.
• Develop and maintain Model Audit Rule compliant procedures for departmental processing and ensure compliance with Record Information Management requirements.
• Lead by example and promote accountability, continuous improvement, collaboration, and Sammons Financial Group Companies shared values (Accountability, Connection, Openness, Respect, and Integrity).
• As stated within the Company Attendance and Punctuality policy, regular attendance is required and expected to meet business service levels, support commitments, and workflow demands; participate in other initiatives and/or projects as necessary.

Benefits

• Comprehensive health coverage for you and your family, including Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA & FSA options, and term life insurance.
• Competitive compensation with a performance-based incentive program tied to clear goals and individual and/or company success.
• Invest in your future with our 100% company-funded Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), plus automatic enrollment in our 401(k).
• Work–life balance that means something. Friday afternoons off year-round, generous paid time off, and paid holidays.
• Commit to your growth with paid development time, tuition reimbursement, and professional development opportunities across industry, individual, and leadership programs.
• Make an impact beyond the workplace through volunteer time off, and our company nonprofit matching gift program, supporting the causes that matter most to you.
• An ownership culture that inspires; join a connected, values-driven workplace where employees take accountability, support one another, and are empowered to do their best work—together shaping our future shared success.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager