How to Vet and Hire the Right SQL Server Expert for Complex Technical Challenges

Farmington, United States - August 11, 2025 / SQL Tailor /

How to Choose a SQL Server Expert

Much of the time, SQL Server just works. It’s easy to install and use as a database for applications. That’s a wonderful thing, until customer growth causes performance to start sporadically hitting a wall, or until there’s a series of outages that don’t make sense to your team. Maybe there’s a feature that someone implemented, but that person left the company and no one left behind knows enough to fix the current problems.

You need a SQL Server expert, or consultant, in these cases, and this article will describe how to find one that will meet your company’s needs.

Steps to Choosing a SQL Server Expert

1. Define your problem.

You need clear knowledge of what problem or set of problems your company is unable to solve on its own.

Defining the issue will be critical, especially if you will have to convince someone else to spend money for remote DBA experts. Let’s face it, companies spend money only where they see value. So, knowing what value or outcome will be gained from hiring SQL Server experts will go a long way toward convincing your company to loosen the purse strings.

The problem you are trying to solve could be a single, critical problem like a mysterious, recurring performance issue that is costing your company money because it is affecting client-facing applications. Or, maybe the company had an outage or a series of outages and tried to get help from Microsoft, only to be told no help was available because the critical SQL Server is out of support. Now you are seeing the need to start a migration project and don’t have the expertise on how to execute such a project.

The problem might be that your company lacks a dedicated DBA team, but the environment has grown beyond what the sys admins, cloud engineers and developers can support. There are ongoing support issues that are draining too much time from the rest of the team, and some issues that go beyond what a set of accidental DBAs can manage. The company may have no budget for hiring another person with all the associated company costs like insurance, but can afford to pay a SQL Server expert, or team of experts, a monthly fee for help.

During a discovery and engagement call, a good consulting company will ask you questions about what your pain points are, what you have tried and where your expertise may have fallen short in order to determine the best course of action.

2. Research and meet with available companies.

Now that you have a defined problem you are trying to solve, you need to find a remote DBA expert to address the issue or issues. There are a couple of ways to go about this.

First, you could go to your favorite search engine and type in “SQL Server consulting services” or “remote DBA Experts” to see what options you have. But how do you know you can trust or even afford the companies that show up on the first page or two of your search results, especially if you’re not at all familiar with the companies. Here is a quick checklist to get you started with vetting possible companies:

A. Experience: Does the company prominently list years of experience on its website? There is no replacement for experience, especially when you are looking for remote DBA experts. You want to know that the people you will be working with have seen a wide variety of situations so you can have confidence in their ability to help you solve problems. Quickly seeing how much experience your company is going to be purchasing can help you decide which companies to contact.

B. Expertise. They have the needed expertise. Going back to the above point, the company or person you are thinking of engaging with may have years of experience, but do they have the specific experience you need? SQL Server is a vast product. If you need expertise with a certain feature, be sure to ask if they have experience with that feature and if so, how much. Ask them to describe projects they have done involving the feature that your company is having trouble with.

C. Industry reputation. This may be harder to gauge in some cases, but most company websites will have customer testimonials and even lists of customers they have worked with before. Do you recognize the people giving a recommendation on the prospective company’s website? Do you know the companies that the potential consulting company has worked with? If the company has a LinkedIn page, what can you learn from that page? Is there a YouTube channel for this company or person and, if so, what does that channel tell you about them? These can be indicators of industry reputation.

D. Clear pricing. Is pricing up-front and known? This makes gauging the cost easy to figure out. Most companies have tiers of services, but not every company will tell you what those services cost until you get into a meeting with them. They want you on the phone and engaged before you learn how much their help will cost. That’s not “wrong,” but it doesn’t assist you with filtering out certain options until later in the process. That may be perfectly OK, if your company isn’t in any particular hurry, but knowing price and associated tiers up-front can facilitate an easier decision.

E. Clear contract terms. Are the terms clear and spelled out? You will want to ask and get in writing things like:

Is there a short-term contract that you can terminate if the working relationship isn’t a match, or are you locked in for 12 months or longer?
How will you interact with company representatives? Is it over email or through a ticketing system, or can you call and reach someone?
How hard will it be to get someone on the phone quickly to help with an urgent business outage or problem?

These are all things that you should ask and typically will be spelled out in an agreement.

A second way to find a reliable SQL Server expert is to start by asking your team who they recommend. Your team has likely spent some time researching answers to SQL Server problems. They will likely remember the websites and people that provided the most help. Some of those websites will be from companies that offer SQL Server consulting services.

Investigating those companies first may provide a good fit because your team already has a positive feeling about the help they received online, and they’re likely the ones who will interact with whomever gets hired. Isn’t “cultural fit” part of what companies hire for when they are looking for new employees? Why not look for that when hiring for a consulting company?

You’ll still need to to the Internet and see what the company’s online presence can tell you about, but talking to your team first helps narrow the list of possibilities a bit.

3. Sign the contract and start the onboarding process.

This is where the wider IT team will become engaged by providing network access, SQL Server access, and getting the chosen company in contact with the application teams and potentially other database personnel who are having the problems.

SQL Tailor Consulting

Whether you’re looking to hire SQL Server experts for daily or weekly support, a large project or to fix an issue your team doesn’t have the time or expertise for, SQL Tailor Consulting can help. Put our more than 25 years of experience to work for you. We have multiple pricing options to fit your needs and we’re always willing to customize a package for you. Contact us today at (248) 919-8086 or schedule a free consultation today.