I agree with John, the IT field (considered as a whole) has specialized and while it makes moving into new roles more difficult, having more positions available for narrower roles would create opportunities at least theoretically. That's a debate we could go round and round on all day.

What is interesting even with the specialization of IT, there is still a tendency in the business world to think of IT folks in the old 'generalist' mindset. If you do something with IT, you are assumed to automatically know everything there is to know not only about computers, but virtually every other electronic gadget out there as well. People all the time ask me about smartphones and the like and I look at them and say, "my cell phone makes phone calls." They look at me weird and then the light turns on. It's actually kind of fun in a way.

I haven't been in the database part of IT long enough to know for sure, but from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery, I can't help but think the rise of data science and "big data" will bring even more specialization within the database field itself. Something to think about anyway.