I happen to work in an environment where I am just a DBA, and for a decently sized environment. However, having the dev background, I am quite competent in C# and VB.NET and that has played heavy in my success as a DBA, as well as in consulting work since I can switch hit to solve complex problems. It has also taught me to notice when things are better done in an application versus in the database. I sit in on development meetings with our .NET developers to know what they are doing, and to also offer ideas to them. I like to stay abreast of the changing technologies, and beyond that I a really am a total geek, so there are times that I know of a newer way to solve a problem that they haven't heard of or used yet.