Database Administrator

About FPPA

The Fire and Police Pension Association was created by legislative mandate in the 1980’s. Our leadership team guides us in fulfilling our mission, vision and values while achieving our strategic objectives. We administer a statewide multiple employer public employee retirement system providing defined benefit plan coverage as well as death and disability coverage for police officers and firefighters throughout the State of Colorado.

We are a small association of only 70 staff located in Denver, CO. We work hard and have a culture that supports staff to establish a well‐balanced relationship between their personal needs and work commitments.

Position Summary

The Database Administrator is responsible for the security, performance, availability, and modernization of FPPA's data platforms. This role administers Microsoft SQL Server and Azure based database technologies while supporting the Pension Administration System (PAS) modernization initiative.

The Database Administrator leads data readiness, data quality, and data migration activities associated with PAS implementation and works with business, technical, and vendor teams to prepare data for the future platform. The role also helps advance FPPA's use of modern data technologies, analytics, and artificial intelligence by establishing secure, reliable, and trusted data foundations.

Key Responsibilities

Database Administration

• Administer and maintain Microsoft SQL Server, Azure SQL, and related database environments
• Monitor and improve database performance, availability, reliability, and capacity
• Perform database tuning, maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting
• Develop and maintain database standards, configurations, runbooks, and technical documentation
• Manage database access, service accounts, permissions, and privileged administrative activities
• Support enterprise applications, reporting, integrations, and production operations

Backup, Recovery & Resilience

• Owns requirements for database backup, restore, recovery, and high availability
• Coordinate backup infrastructure, automation, monitoring, and recovery procedures with Dev/Ops and Systems Engineers
• Define recovery requirements and validate that database backups are complete, protected, and recoverable
• Plan, document, and participate in disaster recovery and restoration testing

Data Security

• Lead database encryption and protection of data at rest, including database and backup encryption
• Implement and maintain database auditing, access controls, least privilege, and separation of duties
• Evaluate database level protections such as Transparent Data Encryption, Always Encrypted, data masking, and column level encryption based on business and security requirements
• Coordinate with the Network & Security Analyst on data in transit, certificates, network controls, monitoring, vulnerability management, and incident response
• Support security assessments, audits, risk remediation, and compliance activities

PAS Data Readiness & Migration

• Serve as the technical lead for database and data work supporting PAS modernization
• Work through data readiness findings and remediation activities identified by 3rd party oversight vendor and future PAS implementation partners
• Assess source data, document data structures and dependencies, and help define data quality rules
• Develop or support data profiling, cleansing, transformation, validation, reconciliation, and conversion processes
• Coordinate with business subject matter experts, Software Development, Quality Assurance, vendors, and project leadership to resolve data issues
• Validate the completeness, accuracy, integrity, and traceability of converted data

Data Modernization & AI Readiness

• Help establish secure, trusted, governed, and reusable data assets for reporting, analytics, automation, and AI
• Support Microsoft data technologies such as Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure AI services, and approved Copilot capabilities
• Improve lineage, data definitions, documentation, and data discovery
• Identify practical opportunities to automate database administration, data quality, reconciliation, and monitoring
• Apply security, privacy, governance, and human oversight requirements when introducing AI enabled data capabilities

Qualifications Summary

• Bachelor's degree in information technology, computer science, information systems, data management, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience
• Five or more years of Microsoft SQL Server database administration experience in enterprise environments
• Experience administering production databases and supporting high availability, backup, recovery, performance tuning, and troubleshooting
• Experience with Azure SQL or related Microsoft Azure data services
• Experience implementing database security, encryption, auditing, and access controls
• Experience with data migration, conversion, integration, data quality, or ETL/ELT processes
• Ability to document technical environments and explain complex data issues to technical and nontechnical audiences
• Ability to work across business, technical, governance, security, and vendor teams
• Strong organizational and documentation skills.
• Ability to work independently and within a team environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting a large-scale enterprise system implementation or data conversion
• Experience in public sector, financial services, pension administration, or another regulated environment
• Experience with Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure Key Vault, or Azure Monitor
• Experience with data governance, metadata management, data lineage, or data cataloging
• Experience supporting responsible AI, advanced analytics, or automation initiatives
• Microsoft Azure Database Administrator or related Microsoft certification

Salary and Benefits

The salary range for this position is $125K ‐ $150K depending upon experience. Includes group medical, dental, vision, 401K, 457, defined benefit though Colorado PERA, life insurance and long‐term disability.

How do you apply?

Please send your cover letter and resume to Human Resources, [email protected].