Top 12 SQL Server DBA Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive field of database administration, a sharp SQL Server DBA skill set separates you from the pack. The pages below spotlight twelve core skills worth featuring on a resume—practical, job-winning, and current—so hiring managers instantly see what you bring to the engine room of data.

SQL Server DBA Skills

1. T-SQL
2. SSIS
3. SSRS
4. SSAS
5. Always On
6. Performance Tuning
7. Database Mirroring
8. Replication
9. Azure SQL
10. PowerShell
11. SQL Profiler
12. Backup & Recovery

1. T-SQL

T-SQL (Transact-SQL) is Microsoft’s extension to SQL for SQL Server. Beyond basic CRUD, it folds in variables, control-of-flow logic, transactions, error handling, window functions, and sturdy tools for set-based data shaping. It’s the lingua franca of daily DBA life.

Why It's Important

T-SQL powers creation, change, and performance. From schema migrations to troubleshooting slow queries, it’s how you control the database, safeguard transactions, and squeeze out wasted reads.

How to Improve T-SQL Skills

Performance lives in the details; tighten the bolts and queries fly:

1. Index optimization: Verify index coverage for critical predicates and JOIN columns. Prune duplicates. Watch fragmentation and fill factors.

2. Query refactoring: Favor set-based logic over cursors. Simplify predicates. Cut scalar UDFs from hot paths where feasible.

3. Avoid unnecessary columns: Skip SELECT *. Pull only what you actually need to return or compute.

4. Keep statistics fresh: Up-to-date stats guide the optimizer. Schedule updates, especially on volatile tables.

5. Address parameter sniffing: Use OPTION(RECOMPILE) surgically, or parameterize with care. Consider plan guides or OPTIMIZE FOR where appropriate.

6. SET NOCOUNT ON: Trim chattiness in stored procedures to cut wire chatter.

7. Temp tables vs. table variables: Pick based on size and cardinality. Temp tables get stats; table variables don’t (until recent versions add limited support).

8. Batch heavy operations: Break massive modifications into smaller batches to reduce log pressure and lock storms.

9. Read the plan: Actual execution plans tell the truth—look for scans, spills, expensive lookups, parallel thrash.

10. Mind concurrency: Choose isolation levels deliberately. Snapshot where it fits, hints only when you must.

How to Display T-SQL Skills on Your Resume

2. SSIS

SQL Server Integration Services moves and reshapes data at scale. Packages connect disparate sources, transform streams, and land results fast—on schedule and under control.

Why It's Important

Reliable ETL keeps analytics fresh, migrations tidy, and operational feeds humming. SSIS gives you the levers: parallelism, checkpoints, auditing, and resilient workflows.

How to Improve SSIS Skills

Build packages that run lean and finish early:

1. Optimize data access: Use fast-load options. Project only needed columns. Push filters and joins to the source when possible.

2. Right-size logging: Log enough to troubleshoot without drowning the I/O subsystem.

3. Parallel where safe: Split independent data flows and tasks. Watch CPU and disk saturation.

4. Tame memory: Tune buffer sizes and default buffer max rows. Trim row width by removing dead columns early.

5. Avoid row-by-row code: Prefer native transforms and set-based operations over RBAR patterns.

6. Partition big tables: On the database side, partitions can accelerate incremental loads and maintenance.

7. Deploy smart: Use the SSIS Catalog, environment references, and DTEXEC for consistent, parameterized runs.

8. Manage transactions: Use them deliberately; unnecessary ambient transactions throttle throughput.

9. Index and stats care: Keep source and destination indexes healthy to avoid sluggish reads and writes.

10. Check the network: Latency kills throughput. Co-locate where you can; batch and compress where you can’t.

How to Display SSIS Skills on Your Resume

3. SSRS

SQL Server Reporting Services generates, secures, and delivers paginated reports and dashboards. It’s the workhorse for operational reporting when pixels and print matter.

Why It's Important

Stakeholders crave timely, accurate reports. SSRS lets you shape data, cache results, schedule deliveries, and govern access—no mystery, just repeatable output.

How to Improve SSRS Skills

Make reports fast, readable, and predictable:

1. Optimize the source: Index for the report queries you actually run. Pre-aggregate when repeated summaries dominate.

2. Trim payloads: Filter early. Parameterize wisely. Return only what the layout shows.

3. Use subreports sparingly: They can multiply round trips. Consider shared datasets or drillthrough reports.

4. Design for render speed: Avoid overly complex expressions and nested tablixes unless they earn their keep.

5. Schedule smartly: Run heavy subscriptions off-peak. Cache and snapshot frequently requested reports.

6. Monitor: Review execution logs and server counters. Tune timeouts, memory, and scale-out if needed.

7. Stay current: Keep SSRS patched and aligned with your SQL Server version to pick up fixes and improvements.

How to Display SSRS Skills on Your Resume

4. SSAS

SQL Server Analysis Services delivers OLAP cubes and Tabular models for rapid analytics. It shapes dimensional data into blazing-fast queries with space for business logic.

Why It's Important

When raw tables creak under analytical load, SSAS models sprint. They pre-aggregate, compress, and expose friendly semantics to tools people already use.

How to Improve SSAS Skills

Shrink query times and speed up processing with careful design:

1. Tune queries: Profile MDX or DAX. Hunt down expensive calculations and iterate measures for speed.

2. Partition models: Break large tables or cubes into logical partitions for faster processing and targeted refresh.

3. Build aggregations: Precompute summaries where they move the needle.

4. Process surgically: Use incremental processing and Process Update to avoid full refreshes when data trickles in.

5. Mind memory: Configure memory limits and segment sizes. Keep models lean—remove unused columns and relationships.

6. Simplify design: Too many hierarchies or complex relationships slow everything down. Clarity wins.

7. Healthy source database: Current stats and appropriate indexing in the relational source feed better SSAS performance.

8. Right hardware and config: Balance CPU, RAM, and storage throughput. Align SSAS server settings with workload patterns.

9. Watch and adjust: Use flight recorders and perf counters to identify bottlenecks, then iterate.

How to Display SSAS Skills on Your Resume

5. Always On

Always On availability groups and failover cluster instances deliver high availability and disaster recovery for SQL Server. Think fast failover, secondary replicas, readable secondaries, and robust protection.

Why It's Important

Downtime hurts. Always On reduces it, safeguards data, and spreads read workloads across replicas for breathing room.

How to Improve Always On Skills

Get the foundations right, then refine:

1. Pre-deployment hygiene: Validate Windows Server Failover Clustering, quorum choices, and domain health. Match OS and SQL Server versions across nodes.

2. Network layout: Low latency links between replicas. Isolate endpoints on dedicated NICs if you can. Monitor throughput and jitter.

3. Instance settings: Tune MAXDOP, cost threshold for parallelism, tempdb configuration, and memory caps to fit workload character.

4. Database readiness: Solid index maintenance and current stats. Keep file layouts consistent across replicas.

5. AG choices: Use synchronous-commit for HA (with automatic failover), asynchronous-commit for DR and distance. Enable readable secondaries to offload reads, but watch resource contention.

6. Observe relentlessly: Dashboards, DMVs, and Extended Events tell you about latency, queue build-up, and failover health. Act early.

7. Backup strategy: Coordinate backups across replicas. Decide where to run them to balance impact and capacity.

8. Capacity planning: Reassess growth and headroom regularly. Test failover under load, not just idle.

How to Display Always On Skills on Your Resume

6. Performance Tuning

Performance tuning trims latency, boosts throughput, and keeps the server calm under pressure. It spans indexes, queries, configuration, memory, I/O, and the way apps talk to the database.

Why It's Important

Speed is user experience. Efficiency is cost control. Well-tuned systems avoid fire drills and scale further without throwing hardware at the problem.

How to Improve Performance Tuning Skills

A short list that pays dividends:

1. Index strategy: Create the right covering indexes, remove redundancies, and consider columnstore for analytics workloads.

2. Query Store + plans: Use Query Store to spot regressions and lock good plans. Read actual plans to eliminate scans, spills, and row goal surprises.

3. Statistics: Refresh regularly. Incremental stats on partitions help big tables tell the truth.

4. Resource governance: Watch waits, CPU, memory, and I/O. Use Resource Governor where noisy neighbors need fences.

5. Partitioning: Large tables benefit from partition elimination, targeted maintenance, and archiving strategies.

6. Smart configuration: Calibrate file counts, growth settings, tempdb layout, and recovery models to the workload’s temperament.

7. Modern features: Lean on Intelligent Query Processing, Accelerated Database Recovery, and memory grant feedback where available.

How to Display Performance Tuning Skills on Your Resume

7. Database Mirroring

Database Mirroring maintains a principal and mirror copy of a database for failover. It’s simple and effective—yet legacy.

Why It's Important

It still underpins some production estates and can provide fast failover. But it’s deprecated; new builds should favor Always On availability groups.

How to Improve Database Mirroring Skills

If you support mirroring today, keep it stable and predictable:

1. Network matters: Low, consistent latency between partners. Separate traffic where possible.

2. Pick the right safety mode: High-safety (synchronous) for HA with a witness and automatic failover; high-performance (asynchronous) for distance and throughput.

3. Healthy instances: Align MAXDOP, memory, tempdb layout, and trace flags across principal and mirror.

4. Use a witness for auto-failover: Place it on dependable infrastructure, separate from the principal and mirror.

5. Index and stats maintenance: Prevent sluggish workloads from inflating log send queues.

6. Monitor DMVs: Track send/redo queues, synchronization state, and failover readiness.

7. Batch work: Chunk heavy transactions to avoid log thrash.

How to Display Database Mirroring Skills on Your Resume

8. Replication

Replication copies data and objects from a publisher to subscribers, keeping systems in sync. Snapshot, transactional, and merge each serve different patterns.

Why It's Important

It scales reads, feeds reporting, and spreads data across regions or systems with controlled latency.

How to Improve Replication Skills

Keep it clean, fast, and observable:

1. Strong network: Give the publisher, distributor, and subscribers reliable bandwidth and low latency.

2. Monitor continuously: Replication Monitor, perf counters, and alerts help catch latency or agent failures quickly.

3. Pick the right type: Transactional for near-real-time, snapshot for static or small datasets, merge for disconnected writers (only when truly required).

4. Distribution database care: Place it on fast storage and size it properly. Index the hot spots.

5. Tune batch sizes: Adjust commit batch size and max transactions per batch to match network behavior.

6. Metadata cleanup: Schedule regular cleanup to prevent runaway growth.

7. Index wisely: Align publication and subscription indexes with application read patterns.

8. Compression where helpful: Reduce payload size across constrained links.

How to Display Replication Skills on Your Resume

9. Azure SQL

Azure SQL spans three shapes: Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server on Azure VMs. You get managed backups, high availability, elastic scale, and modern features without babysitting hardware.

Why It's Important

Cloud databases scale on demand, bake in resilience, and surface insights through built-in telemetry. Less undifferentiated heavy lifting, more delivery.

How to Improve Azure SQL Skills

Tune what matters, automate the rest:

1. Observe: Use built-in metrics and query insights to find hot spots and regressions.

2. Indexes + automatic tuning: Review recommendations, then validate. Embrace automatic plan correction when it proves itself.

3. Plan quality: Inspect execution plans. Leverage Query Store to track changes across deployments.

4. Right-size tiers: Scale up, out, or down as workload ebbs and surges. Consider Serverless for spiky loads and Hyperscale for massive datasets.

5. Partition big tables: Speed maintenance and narrow scans with sensible partitioning keys.

6. Compression: Row/page compression can lower storage and I/O—measure before and after.

7. Security first: Enforce encryption at rest and in transit, auditing, and advanced threat protection features.

8. Automate maintenance: Backups, integrity checks, and index maintenance should be policy-driven and scheduled.

9. Migrate wisely: Managed Instance eases lift-and-shift for legacy features; review compatibility levels and feature gaps.

10. Stay current: Track platform updates—new query processing improvements and engine features arrive continuously.

How to Display Azure SQL Skills on Your Resume

10. PowerShell

PowerShell is the glue for automation in Windows and SQL Server ecosystems. With the SqlServer module and scripts, repetitive chores vanish and consistency takes over.

Why It's Important

Automation eliminates toil, shrinks errors, and scales your reach across servers and environments.

How to Improve PowerShell Skills

Build practical muscle, one script at a time:

1. Master the basics: Pipelines, objects, modules, error handling, remoting. Get comfortable in the shell.

2. SqlServer module: Use cmdlets to manage instances, run queries, handle backups, and inspect configuration.

3. Automate the usual suspects: Backups, restores, CHECKDB, index maintenance, and inventory reporting.

4. Parameterize and schedule: Add parameters, config files, and credentials vaulting. Schedule with SQL Agent or Task Scheduler.

5. Observability: Gather performance metrics and DMVs into time-series logs for trending and alerts.

6. Version control: Keep scripts in source control, code-review changes, and package reusable modules.

How to Display PowerShell Skills on Your Resume

11. SQL Profiler

SQL Server Profiler captures and traces events for troubleshooting. It works—but it’s heavy. Modern practice leans on Extended Events for lower overhead and richer data.

Why It's Important

When a system misbehaves, targeted tracing reveals which queries, waits, or deadlocks are to blame. Use the right tool for the job, and keep the blast radius small.

How to Improve SQL Profiler Skills

Prefer lighter tracing, and keep your captures surgical:

1. Filter aggressively: Capture only the events and columns you need.

2. Favor server-side or Extended Events: Reduce overhead and write to files for later analysis.

3. Short traces: Time-bounded, focused sessions are safer and easier to parse.

4. Analyze efficiently: Load traces into SSMS or a staging table and query for patterns.

5. Watch production impact: Track CPU, waits, and I/O while tracing. If risk is high, reproduce issues off production.

6. Migrate: Where possible, replace Profiler with Extended Events sessions for ongoing diagnostics.

How to Display SQL Profiler Skills on Your Resume

12. Backup & Recovery

Backups protect data; restores prove it. Full, differential, and log backups form the core. Recovery time and data loss objectives shape the plan.

Why It's Important

When the worst happens—disk failure, corruption, accidental deletion—restoring quickly and correctly is everything. Compliance and retention policies ride along.

How to Improve Backup & Recovery Skills

Make restores boring—in a good way:

1. Consistent strategy: Schedule full, differential, and log backups to meet RPO/RTO. Document where they land and how long they live.

2. Test restores regularly: Verify integrity with RESTORE VERIFYONLY and real test restores to alternate servers.

3. Compression: Save space and time. Measure CPU trade-offs.

4. Encryption: Protect backup files at rest. Manage certificates and keys safely.

5. Automated verification: Script checksums, restore tests, and alerts so failures never hide.

6. Off-site copies: Keep backups in another location or cloud storage to survive site outages.

7. HA/DR alignment: Integrate with Always On or other HA/DR, coordinating where backups run.

8. Monitoring and alerts: Track job outcomes, backup age, and restore time estimates.

9. Document procedures: Step-by-step runbooks for common recovery scenarios—fast, unambiguous, tested.

How to Display Backup & Recovery Skills on Your Resume