The Database Architect will be responsible for defining, designing, and governing the enterprise data architecture for our product suite built on Microsoft SQL Server and deployed on Azure SQL Database within a hybrid multi-tenant SaaS environment. This role will establish database architecture standards, optimize data models, and drive strategic decisions to ensure a highly available, secure, and scalable cloud data platform.

The successful candidate will lead the design of tenant isolation strategies, data partitioning, performance optimization, and elastic scalability to support multiple customers efficiently within a shared Azure infrastructure while maintaining strong data security and compliance. This role will also oversee database governance, high availability, disaster recovery, and performance tuning across all product modules.

Working closely with Product Management, Software Engineering, and DevOps/Cloud Infrastructure teams, the Database Architect will shape the overall data strategy, ensuring that tenant data is securely stored, efficiently accessed, seamlessly migrated, and effectively protected throughout its lifecycle. The role requires balancing scalability, cost optimization, security, and operational excellence while enabling the continued growth of our SaaS platform.

Key Responsibilities

- Own the end-to-end database architecture and data model
- Design and evolve the hybrid multi-tenant data architecture on Azure SQL Database deciding and implementing the right mix of tenant-isolation patterns (database-per-tenant, schema-per-tenant, shared schema with tenant discriminator, sharded elastic pools) per customer segment and scale tier.
- Architect and manage Azure SQL elastic pools, resource governance, and tenant-to-pool placement to balance cost, performance isolation, and noisy-neighbor risk across the SaaS customer base.
- Define database design standards, naming conventions, normalization/denormalization guidelines, and indexing strategy for the product engineering team.
- Optimize query performance, stored procedures, and T-SQL code across the platform; lead performance tuning and query plan analysis for high-traffic modules in a multi-tenant load pattern.
- Architect ETL/data pipelines (SSIS, Azure Data Factory, or equivalent) for reporting, analytics, processing,



and integrations with third-party systems (biometric devices, statutory/compliance portals, banking, accounting software).
- Design and oversee reporting infrastructure (SSRS/Power BI) to support customer-facing dashboards and internal analytics across tenants.
- Define and implement high-availability, geo-replication, backup, and disaster-recovery strategies using Azure SQL Database features (auto-failover groups, active geo-replication, point-in-time restore) to meet SaaS uptime and RPO/RTO commitments.
- Establish data security, encryption, and access-control standards for sensitive HR/payroll data — including tenant data isolation, row-level security, Transparent Data Encryption, Always Encrypted, and Azure AD-based access — ensuring compliance with applicable data-protection regulations.
- Plan and execute database migrations, upgrades, and schema version-control/CI-CD practices across a fleet of tenant databases with minimal downtime.
- Collaborate with backend developers to review and guide database access patterns, ORM usage, connection pooling, and API-to-database integration for the application layer.
- Monitor and manage cloud database cost, capacity, and elasticity (scaling elastic pools up/down, DTU/vCore right-sizing) as the tenant base and data volumes grow.
- Own the on-premise-to-cloud (hybrid) connectivity and data-sync design for customers or components that require on-prem integration alongside the Azure-hosted SaaS platform.
- Mentor database developers, conduct code/design reviews for database-related changes.
- Maintain architecture documentation, ER diagrams, tenant-isolation runbooks, and data dictionaries for the product.

Required Qualifications

- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience).
- 8+ years of experience in database architecture, design, or development, ideally within a multi-tenant SaaS product engineering environment.
- Strong hands-on expertise with Microsoft SQL Server:



T-SQL, stored procedures, indexing, query optimization, and execution-plan analysis.
- Proven, hands-on experience running production workloads on Azure SQL Database, including elastic pools, DTU/vCore models, scaling, and cost management.
- Demonstrated experience designing and implementing multi-tenant data architectures (tenant isolation strategies, shared vs. dedicated resources) for a SaaS product.
- Experience with hybrid cloud architectures — securely connecting on-premise systems/customers with an Azure-hosted SaaS backend (VPN/ExpressRoute, hybrid connectivity, data sync).
- Experience with SSIS/Azure Data Factory (or similar ETL tools) for data integration and SSRS/Power BI for reporting.
- Solid understanding of Azure SQL high-availability and disaster-recovery features (auto-failover groups, active geo-replication, backup/restore, point-in-time recovery).
- Experience working with backend teams using .NET / Java / Node.js and REST APIs against SQL Server / Azure SQL Database.
- Strong understanding of data security best practices for multi-tenant SaaS: encryption at rest/in transit, row-level security, Azure AD integration, and handling sensitive employee/payroll data.
- Excellent analytical, documentation, and stakeholder-communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience with Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Database for PostgreSQL/MySQL, or AWS RDS for comparative/hybrid deployments.
- Exposure to NoSQL or hybrid data stores (Redis, Cosmos DB, MongoDB) for caching or specific product use cases.
- Prior experience architecting the database layer for a SaaS product.
- Microsoft certifications (e.g., Azure Database Administrator Associate, Azure Solutions Architect, SQL Server certifications).
- Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (ARM/Bicep/Terraform) for provisioning Azure SQL resources, and CI/CD practices for database change management.
- Experience with Agile/Scrum delivery methodology.

Key Competencies

- Strategic, big-picture thinker with solid attention to data detail.
- Able to translate complex technical concepts for product and business stakeholders.
- Strong ownership mindset for data quality, security, and performance.
- Collaborative partner across Product, Engineering, and Customer Success teams.

📌 Database Architect (Chennai)
🏢 Funatek Systems
📍 Chennai