Senior Database Architect / ETL & Data Migration Lead- US Based only

US Based Candidates ONLY
Senior Database Architect / ETL & Data Migration Lead
AWS RDS SQL Server | Enterprise Data Migration | ETL/ELT | Financial Systems
BPM Advisors, LLC
Location: Remote – United States only
Engagement: Long-term contract, contingent upon project award
Anticipated Start: November 2026
Expected Commitment: Approximately 30–40 hours/week during major design, migration and implementation phases
Position Overview
BPM Advisors, LLC is assembling a senior technical team for a multi-year State of Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) School Finance system modernization.
We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Database Architect / ETL & Data Migration Lead who can take complete ownership of the backend database and data-migration workstream.
This is not a documentation-only architecture position. The selected individual must be capable of both designing the target database architecture and personally performing or leading hands-on ETL/ELT, SQL development, migration, validation, reconciliation, performance tuning and production cutover activities.
The project involves modernization of a legacy School Finance system into a modern AWS-based application environment supporting complex financial calculations, payment processing, historical data, reporting, integrations, business rules and audit requirements.
The current identified migration baseline includes approximately 29+ tables and 270 GB of data, with the possibility of additional databases, tables, files and historical sources being identified during implementation.
Primary Responsibilities
The Senior Database Architect / ETL & Data Migration Lead will:
Architect the new logical and physical database model for the modernized School Finance application.
Design and build the target database environment using Microsoft SQL Server / AWS RDS for SQL Server.
Analyze existing legacy schemas, tables, relationships, stored procedures, data dependencies and historical data.
Design normalized and appropriately denormalized structures based on application, reporting, audit and performance requirements.
Establish database standards for:
Keys and relationships
Referential integrity
Indexing
Query optimization
Stored procedures
Views
Data types
Naming conventions
Archival/history
Auditability
Security
Perform hands-on SQL development and performance tuning, including complex queries, stored procedures and execution-plan optimization.
Own the complete data migration strategy and implementation.
Perform source-system profiling and data-quality analysis.
Develop detailed source-to-target mappings at field level.
Define transformation rules, derived fields, validation rules and data dependencies.
Build and maintain ETL/ELT pipelines and migration scripts.
Perform full and incremental data loads as required.
Design repeatable migration processes for development, testing, UAT, dress rehearsal and production cutover.
Build automated controls for:
Record-count reconciliation
Financial-total reconciliation
Source-to-target validation
Referential-integrity validation
Calculation-output validation
Duplicate detection
Exception identification
Create reconciliation reports and document unresolved exceptions.
Design rollback and recovery procedures for failed or incomplete migrations.
Support legacy and modern systems operating in parallel where required.
Support interfaces involving databases, files, APIs and batch-processing workflows.
Develop database scripts that are version controlled and deployable through CI/CD.
Support DEV, TEST, UAT and PROD environments.
Work with the AWS Architect on database infrastructure, availability, backup, encryption, monitoring and disaster recovery.
Work closely with application architects and .NET developers using C#, ASP.NET Core, APIs, Entity Framework Core and LINQ.
Support reporting and analytics requirements by designing efficient data structures and query patterns.
Participate in sprint planning, backlog refinement, technical design reviews, defect resolution, migration rehearsals, UAT and production deployment.
Produce and maintain technical artifacts including database diagrams, schema documentation, data dictionaries, mapping documents, migration runbooks and reconciliation reports.
Required Qualifications
Candidates should have:
10+ years of enterprise database/data-engineering experience preferred, with at least 5 years in senior database architecture or equivalent responsibilities.
Deep hands-on expertise with Microsoft SQL Server.
Strong experience designing both logical and physical relational database models.
Production experience with AWS RDS for SQL Server or comparable AWS relational database environments.
Significant hands-on experience performing large-scale legacy-to-modern database migrations.
Strong ETL/ELT development experience. The candidate must be able to build pipelines and migration processes personally, not merely supervise an ETL team.
Advanced T-SQL and SQL performance-tuning expertise.
Strong experience with:
Stored procedures
Views
Functions
Indexing
Execution plans
Query optimization
Transaction handling
Referential integrity
Proven experience creating source-to-target mappings.
Proven experience performing migration validation and reconciliation.
Experience designing repeatable migration cycles and production cutovers.
Experience with data cleansing, transformation, exception handling and data-quality controls.
Experience with CI/CD and version-controlled database deployment.
Experience designing databases supporting transactional or financial applications.
Understanding of database security including least privilege, encryption, audit logging and sensitive-data protection.
Ability to work directly with architects, developers, business analysts, QA engineers and client technical teams.
Strong written documentation and communication skills.
Strongly Preferred Experience
Particularly valuable experience includes:
Government, education, financial, payment, accounting or funding systems.
Financial transaction processing.
Calculation-intensive or rules-driven applications.
School Finance, education funding, grants or government payment systems.
Legacy SQL Server modernization.
AWS migration projects.
AWS RDS SQL Server.
AWS DMS, Glue, Lambda or other AWS data services.
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).
Python-based data-processing or reconciliation scripts.
APIs and batch/file-based integrations.
Entity Framework / EF Core.
Data warehousing or reporting environments.
High-volume historical-data migration.
Parallel legacy/new-system operations.
Disaster recovery, backup and high-availability design.
Azure DevOps, Git, GitHub or comparable source-control/CI-CD environments.
This Role Requires Hands-On Work
We are specifically not looking for a candidate whose recent experience is limited to enterprise architecture, management or database diagrams.
The selected person must be comfortable personally:
writing SQL, building ETL processes, troubleshooting bad data, optimizing queries, creating mappings, running migration cycles, reconciling results and solving production data issues.
The ideal person is equally comfortable at a whiteboard designing the future-state database and at a keyboard debugging a failed migration.
Work Requirements
All project services must be performed within the United States.
Candidate must be available for a multi-year project anticipated to begin around November 2026.
Candidate must be able to pass applicable State background/fingerprint requirements if the project is awarded.
This opportunity is currently contingent upon BPM Advisors receiving the project award.
To Be Considered
Please provide:
Current résumé
Current U.S. location
Availability beginning November 2026
Expected hourly rate
Employment preference: 1099, C2C or W-2

Work arrangement
No