Vertafore

Vertafore is a leading technology company whose innovative software solution are advancing the insurance industry. Our suite of products provides solutions to our customers that help them better manage their business, boost their productivity and efficiencies, and lower costs while strengthening relationships.

Our mission is to move InsurTech forward by putting people at the heart of the industry. We are leading the way with product innovation, technology partnerships, and focusing on customer success.

Our fast-paced and collaborative environment inspires us to create, think, and challenge each other in ways that make our solutions and our teams better.

We are headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with offices across the U.S., Canada, and India.

Job Description

We are in search of the world’s most creative and experienced engineering leaders. We embrace entrepreneurs as well as those who come from more established organizations. As a key member of the Sr Manager of database operations leadership team, you will play a pivotal role in the strategic and operational management of our global database systems. Partnering closely with stakeholders across engineering, product, and business units, you will architect scalable and resilient solutions that support our enterprise platforms and strategic producer partners. This role requires strong leadership, technical, and operational skills to ensure high availability, security, scalability, and optimal performance of critical business systems.

You will lead multiple teams of exceptional engineers, provide direction on technical architecture, influence cross-functional initiatives, and contribute to our technology strategy and ensure that the standard operating procedures are followed and revised as per needs. We’re looking for someone with a deep understanding of database systems, distributed architectures, and enterprise SaaS platforms—someone who is both a hands-on technical expert and an inspiring leader.

Our culture fosters collaboration, innovation, integrity, mentorship, commitment to success and FUN and you will be adding your creativity and energy to it. Our managers are dedicated to growing their people and offering an opportunity that allows you to make impact in your career.

Core Requirements and Responsibilities:

Essential job functions included but are not limited to the following:

• Lead the database operations strategy to support our growing portfolio of products with a focus on performance, security scalability, and high availability.
• Lead a team of DBA’s and database engineers promoting a culture of accountability, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, platform engineering, DevOps, and SRE to ensure our data infrastructure enables high-quality customer experiences.
• Conduct regular performance reviews, providing feedback and professional growth.
• Coordinate with the TAG team for recruiting, interviewing and hiring new team members as needed.
• Define and maintain the policies, standards and procedures for database management and operations.
• Drive architectural decisions for data storage, replication, disaster recovery, and reliability across cloud and hybrid environments.
• Set the vision for database automation, monitoring, observability, and incident response.
• Build and mentor high-performing teams through coaching, career development, technical guidance and promoting a culture of accountability, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Optimize our use of both relational and NoSQL technologies in alignment with product scalability and user needs.
• Own the health and lifecycle of all database environments.
• Oversee the design, implementation, and management of SQL Server database instances (on-premises and cloud).
• Ensure high availability, performance tuning, and reliability of database systems.
• Manage routine database maintenance, patching, upgrades, and backups.
• Implement and enforce security policies, including encryption, access control, and auditing.
• Lead performance tuning initiatives, including indexing strategies, query optimization, and resource management.
• Manage capacity planning and resource scaling.
• Develop and maintain robust disaster recovery plans and backup/recovery processes.
• Ensure regular testing and compliance with recovery point and recovery time objectives (RPO/RTO).
• Establish and maintain key performance indicators (KPIs) for database operations and provide regular reports to senior management
• Implement robust monitoring and alerting mechanisms to quickly detect and revolve database related issues

Skills & Requirements

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, or a related field (Master’s preferred).
• Overall, 15 years of experience with 10+ years of hands-on experience with Microsoft SQL Server administration (2016 and newer).
• Strong technical knowledge of relational (e.g., SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL) and non-relational databases (e.g., Redis, MongoDB, Cassandra). Will be beneficial
• 5+ years of team leadership or management experience in a database operations role.
• Familiarity with Dyna trace
• Proven expertise in designing and running large-scale, distributed database systems in high-growth environments.
• Hands-on experience with modern cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred)
• Deep knowledge of database internals, Always on Availability Groups, replication, clustering, and security features.
• Experience with high-availability and disaster recovery strategies.
• Strong experience with T-SQL, PowerShell, and SQL Server performance monitoring tools.
• Familiarity with SQL Server in cloud platforms (e.g., Azure SQL, AWS RDS for SQL Server).
• Excellent communication, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Are energetic, effectively managing relationships (up, down, across) and able to roll-up their sleeves to get the job done
• Have an ability to influence across boundaries and at all levels of the organization
• Think strategically to help drive features and services for short and long-term growth
• Can create a fun, fast paced, motivating and rewarding environment for their teams and the organization
• Attract, build and retain a highly engaged and capable development teams that can deliver on our technology and business strategies
• Think End-to-End by connecting all the pieces of the business
• Provide strong people management: attracting, retaining, inspiring and growing individuals; demonstrating a passion for people’s development and mobility
• Mentor and inspire others to raise the bar for everyone around them
• Are creative turning problems and solutions on their heads to come up with better designs, better technical solutions, better products
• We love development managers that:

o Bring an unwavering passion for managing the dynamics of a fast-paced environment

o Communicate effectively cross-functionally across various teams, organizations and internal and external stakeholders to drive engineering effort

o Are self-motivated and excellent problem-solvers

o Are driven to improve, personally and professionally

o Love to collaborate with their peers, designing pragmatic solutions

o Effectively lead and manage change within their area of responsibility as well as across the business

o Have a cooperative, collaborative, open and flexible mindset

Preferred:

• Microsoft certifications (e.g., MCSE: Data Management and Analytics, Azure Database Administrator Associate).
• Experience in DevOps practices, automation (AWS), and CI/CD for database deployments.
• Exposure to data warehousing, SSIS/SSRS/SSAS, and data governance practices.