As a systems/business analyst, my job borders on accounting a little more than I like sometimes. Every aspect of my job is financial: my time has a very real cost, and my job is to analyze that cost versus the benefit of a new program or project. Projects with the highest benefit to cost ratio get done first, projects with low benefit to cost ratios sometimes never get done. Also, I spend a lot of time with both the accounting and sales departments. Both departments send me on errands that inevitably end me up digging through the GL transaction table, or some other financial data. When our auditors need data, who do you think retrieves it? I've actually learned quite a bit about accounting from my job.

I'm also the DBA; more of an incidental DBA than anything else, but I am the sole DBA/database developer for our company. I manage two servers, including backups, disaster recovery, and monitoring. I'm a developer too in that I manage all of the code on the database servers, complete with version control. Implementation of a project often requires that I be all three: business analyst, DBA, and developer.

I've also worn a few other hats at my company. I did end user tech support for some time, as well as general troubleshooting for employee computer issues. I've gone away for both roles, however, as the system analyst role creates a lot more value for the company. Eventually, I'm sure I'll move up to senior systems analyst, but I will probably still be the lead DBA, and I will always be a developer. I'm sure I'll still be a little bit accountant, too.

I don't think my role with the company is a very unique one. This jack-of-all-trades role may not exist at very many large companies, but I'm sure there are plenty of small companies cutting cost by having people performing multiple roles.

Either way, the idea of being both a DBA and a financial analyst is far from new to me.