Database Developer

At Sephora, beauty is about feeling seen, valued, and empowered, individually and collectively. It is connecting deeply with others, celebrating diversity and inclusivity, unlocking your potential and making a difference every day. Together, we belong to something beautiful.

We’re looking for an experienced Database Developer to play a critical role in shaping, optimising and supporting the database platforms that power SEPHORA UK's business‑critical applications and data‑driven decision‑making. This is a hands‑on hybrid role that blends advanced SQL and development responsibilities across the full database lifecycle with database administration.

If you’re energised by complex technical challenges, passionate about performance, and enjoy collaborating with diverse teams to deliver robust, scalable data solutions, this is an exciting opportunity to grow your career within a dynamic, fast‑moving environment.

What you’ll be doing…

You will be responsible for designing, developing, optimising and maintaining our SQL Server environments, including:

• Designing and delivering scalable database architectures, including data modelling, normalisation and performance optimisation.
• Managing day‑to‑day SQL Server administration: installation, configuration, monitoring, tuning, patching and upgrades.
• Implementing and maintaining high‑availability and disaster recovery solutions (e.g., Always‑On AGs, mirroring, log shipping, replication).
• Developing robust backup, recovery and business continuity strategies aligned to RPO/RTO standards.
• Ensuring database security through strong access controls, encryption, auditing and vulnerability assessments.
• Designing, developing and optimising advanced SQL and T‑SQL solutions (queries, stored procedures, views, functions, triggers).
• Working with XML and JSON data structures, including parsing, querying and generating structured data.
• Monitoring database health and diagnosing performance issues using DMVs, execution plans and diagnostic tooling.
• Building and maintaining SSIS packages and ETL processes to support integration and data flows.
• Partnering closely with software engineers, system administrators and Agile teams to provide database expertise, code reviews and query optimisation guidance.

This role is open to candidates based remotely in the UK.

What you'll bring…

You’ll bring deep, hands‑on experience with Microsoft SQL Server in fast‑paced, production environments, confidently operating across both DBA and Database Developer responsibilities. You enjoy partnering with others and work seamlessly with engineering, infrastructure and product teams - communicating clearly, openly and with impact.

You will also be able to demonstrate:

• Expert T‑SQL proficiency, including advanced query optimisation, window functions, CTEs, PIVOT/UNPIVOT, subqueries and set‑based design.
• Strong experience working with XML and JSON data structures and complex data manipulation.
• Proven ability to diagnose and resolve performance issues using index optimisation, statistics management, Query Store, DMVs and other monitoring tools.
• Solid understanding of relational database design, high‑transaction workloads and performance‑critical system behaviour.
• Expertise in backup, recovery, and high‑availability solutions, including Always‑On AGs, mirroring, log shipping, replication and clustering.
• Experience automating administrative tasks using PowerShell, and familiarity with GitHub, Redgate tools and SQL Server Enterprise Edition.
• Strong grounding in Windows Server fundamentals relevant to SQL Server, including performance analysis (CPU, memory, disk I/O).
• Experience troubleshooting across database and OS layers, collaborating closely with infrastructure and DevOps teams to support stable production operations.
• Familiarity with Agile/Scrum environments, the full software development lifecycle and working with ORM‑generated SQL.

Here, you will find:

• Community, in which authenticity is embraced, and the strength of our differences fuels our collective spirit
• Culture of empowerment, learning & growth, that offers you the tools, space and opportunity to learn, innovate and lead
• Work that brings fulfillment. From delighting clients every day, to inspiring our industry at large, every action makes a difference

Join us and belong to something beautiful.

At Sephora, we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating and fostering an inclusive environment for everyone.