Senior Database Engineer

Midwestern Software Solutions, LLC ("MS2")•Ann Arbor, MI

1d•$95,000 - $145,000•Hybrid

About The Position

MS2 is a national leader in transportation data management and analysis and has the largest traffic count database in North America. More than 270 agencies in 31 US States, and 3 Canadian Provinces, including 28 state Departments of Transportation, are using MS2 software to manage their transportation data. MS2 is located in the beautiful city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the home of high-tech industries and the University of Michigan. Residents of the city enjoy beautiful parks, mature neighborhoods, amenities of the Huron River and easy access to downtown Detroit or to colorful “Pure Michigan” woods and waterways. MS2 is a friendly, open, team working to support our clients' software needs. Staff members work on a variety of tasks and are given a high degree of responsibility. We offer an excellent environment for transportation professionals and Software Engineers with competitive compensation and benefit packages. We're a small team and you'll have an opportunity to make a big impact! We are seeking a Senior Database Engineer to shape the data foundation of our transportation platform. You will partner with product and engineering teams to design, build, and maintain the SQL databases and data services that power MS2’s software used by road agencies across 31 states. The role emphasizes performance, reliability, and clear ownership of production data flows. You will solve problems independently and collaborate with an experienced, supportive team.

Requirements

5+ years of progressive experience as a SQL Database Administrator or Database Engineer supporting production environments
Proven track record designing, scaling, and maintaining mission-critical SQL database systems and data pipelines, including large-scale datasets
Strong technical knowledge of MS SQL Server installation, configuration, and maintenance
Strong T-SQL skills, including indexing, execution plans, statistics, partitioning, concurrency control, andperformance tuning
Experience deploying and evolving databases safely in high-uptime environments
Practical experience with observability, including metrics, logs, tracing, and alerting aligned to SLOs
Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail
Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
Demonstrated experience collaborating effectively in team environments

Nice To Haves

Experience working within a Microsoft-based application stack, including C#/.NET
Experience with AWS-hosted SQL Server, including backup, restore, and capacity planning.
Exposure to job orchestration or data processing workflows (e.g., ETL scheduling, messaging, or queueing systems).
Exposure to Powershell scripting.
Experience with Git / GitHub workflows and pull-request-based collaboration.

Responsibilities

Collaborate with engineers, project managers, business stakeholders, and QA to design and deliver reliable, scalable, and secure database solutions.
Lead database design efforts, including schema design, data modeling, indexing strategy, and query optimization across transactional, ETL, and reporting workloads.
Monitor, tune, and improve database performance, scalability, and security in production environments.
Define, measure, and maintain service-level objectives (SLOs) for key data flows using metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting.
Review and evolve existing database designs, ensuring safe and consistent schema changes, data migrations, and query updates.
Execute and guide the full software development life cycle (SDLC), including requirements gathering, feasibility analysis, documentation, implementation, testing, deployment, and post-release evaluation.
Develop technical documentation, data flow diagrams, and operational procedures to support maintainability and long-term system health.
Troubleshoot, debug, and upgrade existing systems while proactively identifying opportunities to improve performance, reliability, and operational efficiency.
Deploy database changes safely in high-uptime environments and partner with application teams to integrate data components into broader systems.
Mentor engineers and provide database training and guidance to improve overall system design, performance, and data integrity practices.
Establish and reinforce best practices for version control, deployment, observability, and data integrity validation.
Conduct system analysis and recommend architectural or process improvements to strengthen platform reliability and scalability.
Stay current with evolving database technologies, tooling, and industry standards, and apply relevant advancements to improve the platform.
Demonstrate leadership through initiative, accountability, collaboration, and a focus on team and business outcomes.