Site Reliability Engineer - SQL Server

Lilly • Indianapolis, IN

45d • Onsite

About The Position

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to their communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.
Enable reliable, secure, high‑performing SQL Server and cloud database environments by driving automation, modernizing multi‑cloud data platforms, and ensuring enterprise‑grade observability, compliance, and operational excellence.
The Tech@Lilly team is actively looking for an experienced SQL Server Site Reliability Engineer who is passionate about advancing enterprise‑scale data platforms, modernizing database operations, and enabling Cloud‑ready SQL servers. If you thrive in solving complex reliability challenges, automating repetitive tasks, strengthening governance, and empowering application teams—this role is for you. Your expertise accelerates innovation, improves system resilience, and supports the mission of delivering medicines that make life better for people around the world.
You will serve as a core engineering and operational expert for SQL Server across on‑premise and multi‑cloud environments. In this role, you will ensure availability, resiliency, automation, observability, and lifecycle management of mission‑critical SQL server services. You will work closely with Cloud Infrastructure, SMEs, Security, and Application Engineering teams to modernize, optimize, and secure enterprise database operations.

Requirements

• Deep expertise in SQL Server internals, HA/DR architectures (Always On AGs, FCI), and enterprise‑scale database patterns.
• Proven ability to diagnose and optimize performance issues, indexing strategies, and heavy workloads.
• Strong automation experience with PowerShell, Python, Ansible, Terraform, or equivalent tools.
• Knowledge of Azure/AWS SQL services and hybrid‑cloud integration patterns.
• Experience with identity/security frameworks (AD, Azure AD, SSO).
• Familiarity with DevOps workflows, Git, schema versioning, and CI/CD for data platforms.
• Strong communication, analytical thinking, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to translate business requirements into scalable platform enhancements.
• Backup & Recovery experience including restore drill validation.
• Experience with observability tooling (e.g., Splunk, Grafana, AppInsights).
• Familiarity with ITSM tools (ServiceNow or similar).
• Security & compliance experience with TDE, Always Encrypted, RBAC, auditing, vulnerability remediation.
• Automation experience with PowerShell, Python, Terraform, Ansible, Bicep/ARM.
• Experience with DBOps, Git workflows, and automated database deployments.
• Experience with CDC configuration and management.
• Cloud knowledge across Azure SQL DB, Managed Instance, SQL on VM; AWS experience is a plus.
• Strong root cause analysis skills.
• High School Diploma/GED with 5+ years administering SQL Server.
• Experience with SQL Server in both on‑prem and Azure‑based deployments.
• High Availability & DR experience: Always On AGs, FCI, Log Shipping, Replication, Geo‑replication.
• Experience in performance‑tuning background: indexing, partitioning, statistics, query tuning, log management.
• Qualified applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Lilly will not provide support for or sponsor work authorization or visas for this role, including but not limited to F-1 CPT, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, J-1, H-1B, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, or L-1.

Nice To Haves

• Exposure to containers/Kubernetes for database‑adjacent workloads (a plus).

Responsibilities

• Provide day‑to‑day administration and operational support for SQL Server (2014, 2016, and above).
• Perform performance tuning, patching, upgrades, backup/recovery, and capacity management.
• Ensure database reliability, availability, and compliance with enterprise security standards.
• Handle database incidents, requests, and changes.
• Install, configure, upgrade, and patch SQL Server across all editions and environments.
• Troubleshoot database issues, errors, blocking, deadlocks, memory/storage performance, and bottlenecks.
• Optimize queries, indexes, and execution plans.
• Support new server/database creation, maintenance job design, CDC configuration, and platform integration.
• Support SQL Server migrations to Azure, AWS, and other cloud platforms.
• Assist in designing DR, replication strategies, and cross‑cloud failover.
• Build automation using PowerShell, Python, Ansible, Terraform, Bicep/ARM, and Shell scripting.
• Implement Infrastructure‑as‑Code (IaC) for database provisioning, patching, and configuration.
• Apply AIOps practices for anomaly detection, predictive alerting, and proactive incident prevention.
• Partner with Cloud Engineering, Operations, and Application teams to deliver reliable database services.
• Drive modernization through automation, observability, and AI‑driven insights.
• Create runbooks, SOPs, and best practice guides.
• Forecast database growth and manage resource utilization.
• Ensure systems scale efficiently to support high‑volume enterprise workloads.
• Enforce enterprise security standards, RBAC, encryption, auditing, and least‑privilege access.
• Conduct vulnerability scans, patching, and upgrade planning.
• Design and automate full, differential, and transaction log backup strategies.
• Store and manage backups using PPDM (DELL storage).
• Validate RTO/RPO through regular restore testing.
• Optimize SQL workloads across on‑prem, Azure SQL DB, Azure Managed Instance, and IaaS.
• Ensure cost‑efficient sizing and utilization.
• Define and maintain SLIs, SLOs, and SLAs for SQL services.
• Apply SRE best practices to reduce toil and increase reliability.
• Partner with DR teams to execute DR drills, validate failover, and maintain readiness.
• Maintain detailed documentation of environments, configurations, and troubleshooting guides.
• Share knowledge to reduce operational silos and strengthen team capabilities.

Benefits

• Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: High school or GED