MS SQL Database Platform Architect

Location: Basel, Switzerland Contract Duration: 3 years, with possible extension Experience Required: 3+ years. Industry Experience: Utilities & Energy ( Energie & Wasserversorgung) or Telecommunications or Banking & Financial Services or Information Technology & Services Role Overview

We are looking for an experienced MS SQL Database Platform Architect to support a long-term enterprise project in Basel. This is a 3-year contract role with the possibility of extension. In this strategic position, you will be the visionary brain behind our entire data platform. You will design, scale, and secure high-availability database architectures across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments. You will define global standards for data protection, performance tuning frameworks, and infrastructure migration paths, collaborating directly with IT leadership and development teams. Strategic Scope: Design, optimize, and secure complex distributed database systems, cross-platform storage models, high-volume transactional data nodes, and relational enterprise schemas. Core Responsibilities

• Sizing & Deployment Modeling: Define, size, and deploy database resource parameters, hardware profiles, memory buffers, and disk alignment configurations for massive transactional databases.
• Data Modeling Advisory: Advise internal software developers on advanced data modeling, data types, indexing strategies, constraint design, and structural schema partitioning.
• High-Availability Planning: Define, build, and audit database high-availability configurations, including automated failover mirroring, replication topologies, and disaster recovery runbooks.
• Tuning & Execution Profiling: Diagnose slow execution blocks, optimizing complex storage procedures, nested views, deadlocks, and relational analytical queries.
• Migration & Upgrades Engineering: Plan, script, and execute critical database schema updates, high-version data migrations, and database patch deployments with minimal system downtime.

Required Skills & Experience

• Minimum of 3 to 5+ years of hands-on experience in Microsoft SQL Server database administration, database engineering, or enterprise database architecture.
• Strong experience with SQL Server platform sizing, deployment modelling, resource planning, memory configuration, storage design and performance-oriented database setup.
• Good knowledge of data modelling, schema design, indexing strategies, constraints, data types, partitioning and relational database design principles.
• Experience designing, implementing and maintaining high-availability and disaster recovery solutions, including failover, mirroring, replication, backup/restore strategies and DR runbooks.
• Strong performance tuning experience, including execution plan analysis, stored procedure optimisation, deadlock resolution, nested view tuning and complex query optimisation.
• Experience planning and executing database migrations, version upgrades, schema changes, patch deployments and production releases with minimal downtime.
• Ability to advise software development teams on database design, query performance, data integrity and scalable application-database interaction patterns.
• Good understanding of database security, access control, operational monitoring, incident troubleshooting and enterprise change management practices.
• Ability to work independently as well as part of a distributed project team.
• Languages : Flawless bilingual/native-level business German communications proficiency (C1/C2 level written and spoken) is required. The candidate must present seamlessly in German during the technical panel interview (Anbieterfachgespräch).
• Swiss Compliance : Must hold EU/EFTA nationality or possess an active, valid Swiss permanent residency/work card (C Permit or unrestricted B/G Permit).
• What We Offer:**
• Opportunity to work on challenging projects and contribute to the