SQL Server DBA (Contract – 6 Months)

Edinburgh Hybrid 

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced SQL Server Database Administrator to join our client on a 6‑month contract. The role will focus on ensuring the performance, availability, security, and integrity of mission‑critical SQL Server environments, while supporting ongoing operations, improvements, and project work.

This role is well suited to a hands-on DBA who can operate independently, troubleshoot complex issues, and work closely with development, infrastructure, and cloud teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Administer, maintain, and support Microsoft SQL Server environments (2016–2022+)

• Monitor and optimise database performance, capacity, and availability

• Manage backup, restore, and recovery processes; test and validate DR procedures

• Troubleshoot and resolve production database issues and incidents

• Implement and maintain high availability and disaster recovery solutions (e.g. Always On Availability Groups, Failover Clustering)

• Manage security, permissions, and compliance (encryption, auditing, access control)

• Provide DBA support for application releases and change activity

• Collaborate with developers on query tuning and database design best practices

• Document environments, procedures, and operational runbooks

• Act as an escalation point for complex database-related issues,.

• Support of Azure SQL Platforms including Azure SQL DB and SQL Managed Instance.

Essential Skills & Experience

 

• Significant hands-on experience as a SQL Server DBA in enterprise environments

• Strong expertise in SQL Server administration (installation, configuration, troubleshooting)

• Proven experience with performance tuning (indexes, execution plans, waits, IO, memory)

• Solid knowledge of HA/DR technologies (Always On AGs essential)

• Strong T‑SQL skills for diagnostics, automation, and troubleshooting

• Experience with backup and recovery strategies in large environments

• Understanding of Windows Server and storage concepts

• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced, delivery-focused environment.

• Familiarity with Azure concepts.

 

Desirable

• PowerShell / Terraform scripting for DBA automation

• Familiarity with monitoring tools (e.g. , Redgate, SolarWinds, Quest Spotlight)

• Experience working in regulated or security-conscious environments

• Exposure to DevOps / CI‑CD database deployment practices.

• Experience of Fabric and Azure Data Factory.

• Experience of Redwood RMJ.

If this sounds like the right role for you, then please get in touch with Christina Hall at [email protected] 

 

Head of AI Engineering

 

Permanent - Manchester

Hybrid with a focused on-site presence

 

Join a pioneering 5yr+ TechBio company at the intersection of AI, synthetic biology, and industrial biotechnology. You will lead the building of an AI engineering platform connecting computational design, experimental validation, and real-world commercial outcomes. Reporting directly to the CEO, sitting on the management team, and engaging with the Board.

This is a hands-on leadership role with genuine scope to shape the company's long-term technical position.

 

The tasks of a Head of AI Engineering will include:

• Build & lead the AI engineering team; hiring, coaching, designing, delivering.
• Contribute hands-on in coding, architecture, and technical problem-solving.
• Define and build the AI platform connecting data, models, workflows, and learning loops.
• Design and deploy agentic AI capabilities that improve scientific workflows and platform intelligence.
• Build the software foundations for autonomous closed-loop experimentation linking computational design and lab validation.
• Partner with leadership to translate challenges into scalable AI systems.
• Shape technical strategy, hiring, and engineering standards as company scales.

 

To progress as a successful Head of AI Engineering, you will require:

• 5+ years leading engineering, ML, or AI teams at Director or equivalent level.
• Deep expertise in AI/ML; model architectures, training, evaluation, and production deployment.
• Strong software engineering background building production-grade AI platforms and infrastructure.
• Proven experience building and deploying agentic systems into live workflows.
• A player-coach approach; equally comfortable writing code, setting architecture, and leading people.
• Strong communication skills across technical, scientific, and executives.

 

Highly desirable skills include:

• Exposure or understanding of AI and ML in a scientific or biotech environment
• Familiar with specialised datasets, iterative learning loops, or semi-autonomous experimentation systems.

Please Note

• Own eligibility to work in the UK —  sponsorship is not available for this role.
• Significant experience in elite level AI environments is critical.

Rewards & Benefits

• Competitive salary plus equity.
• Senior leadership role with direct CEO and Board exposure.
• The opportunity to build something unique in a well-backed, science-led environment.

 

Keyword terminology
AI Engineering, Machine Learning, Agentic AI, AI Platform, Closed-Loop Experimentation, Autonomous Experimentation, Protein Engineering, Biocatalysis, Computational Biology, Synthetic Biology, Deep Tech, TechBio, Director of Engineering, ML Platform, AI Infrastructure, Lab Automation, Bioinformatics, Player-Coach, Engineering Leadership, AI Agents, LLMs, Python, Numpy, MLOps, Life Sciences AI, Biotechnology.

 

Lead Software Engineer – AI, Agentic Development

Permanent – Hybrid
Greater Manchester area

Join our client as either a Lead or Senior Engineer, taking a significant role in shaping the next generation of AI‑enabled software delivery. This position embraces emerging AI tooling, where you’ll design, build and augment intelligent agent‑based workflows that transform how teams build, test, review and deploy software.

This is not about code re-use or simple code autocompletion. It’s an opportunity to act as a lead for a distributed ecosystem of ‘coding agents’, developing the logic, structures and governance that allow multi‑agent systems to collaborate as part of a modern engineering function. If you’re excited by experimentation, advanced AI‑assisted development, and driving best practice in a rapidly evolving space, this role offers a rare chance to influence engineering culture at scale.

Duties of the Senior Software Engineer will include:

• Design and implement multi‑agent development workflows (e.g., writer, reviewer, tester, deployer agents).
• Develop prompts, behavioural logic, and composition frameworks that guide autonomous coding agents.
• Enable safe and structured agent access to tools such as file systems, source control, test harnesses, and internal APIs.
• Evaluate and refine AI agent performance, assessing collaboration patterns, output quality, and feedback loops.
• Lead and contribute to architectural discussions on AI‑driven build systems, automated generation, and intelligent pipeline design.
• Prototype new AI‑powered developer experiences using LLMs, vector stores, and internal knowledge bases.
• Partner with cross‑functional teams on AI‑enhanced tooling for internal users.
• Help define AI evaluation standards; reliability, accuracy, velocity, impact.
• Mentor others colleagues applying generative AI to real-world development workflows.

• Mentor others colleagues applying generative AI to UI prototyping and automation.
• Champion secure integration of generative AI into regulated environments.
• Participate in the engineering on‑call rotation.

To progress in the Sen Software Engineer role, your experience should include:

• 5+ years’ software engineering experience across both backend and frontend stacks.
• A strong proficiency in various development languages, inc; Java / TypeScript / React.

• Strong relational databases skills, ideally MySQL.
• Practical experience using modern AI‑assisted development tooling—such as Cursor, Windsurf, LLM APIs, code‑generation frameworks, vector databases, and agentic platforms such as LangChain.
• A product mindset focused on building tools & systems deliver real‑world value.
• A demonstrable focus on experimentation, iteration, continuous learning, and evidence‑based decision‑making.
• Ability to operate effectively in regularly evolving, ambiguous environments and contribute to the creation of emerging standards and best practices.
 

Rewards & Benefits

• Competitive base salary commensurate with experience.
• Hybrid working model aligned to team and project needs. (typically, 60% in office)
• Comprehensive benefits package inc. pension, private health, dental & vision care.
• Professional development pathways, including advanced technical training.
• A highly collaborative working environment that values innovation, ownership, and continuous improvement.

Keywords

Agentic Engineering, Software Engineering, AI Engineering, AI Development, Agentic Development, AI‑Enabled Engineering, Multi‑Agent Systems, Generative AI, Java, TypeScript, React, MySQL, LLMs, Cursor, Windsurf, Agentic IDE’s, LLM API’s, Langchain, Code Automation, Developer Tooling, Software Engineering, Agentic Frameworks, Codeium, Lang Chain, Codegen, CI/CD, Vector Databases, Intelligent Pipelines, AI‑Assisted Development, AutoGen, CrewAI, LangGraph, Platform Engineering, Emerging Technologies, Large language models, Antigravity, Anthropic, Claude Code.