RE: DBA Job interview question thoughts

One Orange Chip

Points: 27044

March 14, 2019 at 10:46 am

#2024476

peter_parker - Tuesday, March 12, 2019 3:50 PM
Just out of curiosity how big a whiff would you consider not knowing the difference between a clustered and non-clustered index in SQL Sever?
We're hiring for an ETL "BI" guy/gal --- light DBA duties (like backups, monitoring) -- okay maybe not so light, but it would be nice.
I understand an ETL guru not necessarily need to be an expert in SQL server. That said ... uh ... turning indexes on and off during ETL may be important. "Reading" and tuning queries fast enough to be imported into OLAP cubes or wherever is important.
In your opinion, --- the difference between a clustered and non-clustered index in SQL Sever (I would have accepted that a clustered index is a physical ordering of the database).
If an interview candidate didn't know that, would you consider that junior level? Still potentially mid-level? Obviously they are not expert level with that response.
Curious if I'm making too much out of it.

It depends.
If it was any candidate that was interviewing for any kind of DBA position, then that would be a show-stopper.
If it was a developer position, that would be a show-stopper if they were applying for anything higher than an entry level position. That being said, I'm betting that I could ask that question of the developers here and I might get 2 or 3 right answers!
A BI position is probably the same a developer, if they have done this kind of work, and have no real idea of the meaning of a clustered or non-clustered index, then they probably have not done anything too terribly difficult.

Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/