The Hot DBA

  • http://valleywag.com/390182/

    It looked liked the best job to me especially the pay for a college grad.

    Young people these days expect too much!!!!!:hehe:

  • Young people these days expect too much!!!!!:hehe:

    I totally agree with this and they could not even justify their pay scale. God knows ......;)

  • Loner (5/22/2008)


    Anirban -

    A business trip purely to enjoy!!!!!

    what company do you work for? Where do I send my resume? 🙂

    As soon as openings come I will let u know:)

  • If I had a dollar for every time I've heard the phrase "skills shortage"....

    This is what they say: "We can't find any qualified applicants."

    This is what I hear: "We can't find any qualified applicants [for the salary we are offering]."

    Have you noticed that DBA salaries have barely budged in the last 8 years? Still paying the same $85k in Seattle (for example) that was being paid in 2000. Should be more like $110k. Say it with me: I-N-F-L-A-T-I-O-N

    Maybe I'm cynical. Maybe DBA's are greedy. Maybe most DBA's can't tell you the difference between a DELETE and TRUNCATE (and how to recover...or not). I DO know that the DBA is an underappreciated resource. I've been there for the 3am failures, the weekend upgrades, the emergency performance tuning (i.e. at the a$$ end of the SDLC), the man on the receiving end of the sh*t-flows-down-hill kiss-up, kick-down management. It's a job that needs an experienced person at the helm but most people burn out after just a few years (myself included). Let me say it this way: I can "DBA" with my eyes closed and fingers taped together but you couldn't PAY me to do the job.

    Anyone else feel that way or is it just me?


    James Stover, McDBA

  • James Stover (5/23/2008)


    If I had a dollar for every time I've heard the phrase "skills shortage"....

    This is what they say: "We can't find any qualified applicants."

    This is what I hear: "We can't find any qualified applicants [for the salary we are offering]."

    BINGO!

    We have three positions unfilled because of that reason. There are pretty much no local talent to fill them, and the salaries they offer are not competitive. And if you don't offer moving expenses, then why bother?

    -----
    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

  • James Stover (5/23/2008)


    If I had a dollar for every time I've heard the phrase "skills shortage"....

    This is what they say: "We can't find any qualified applicants."

    This is what I hear: "We can't find any qualified applicants [for the salary we are offering]."

    Have you noticed that DBA salaries have barely budged in the last 8 years? Still paying the same $85k in Seattle (for example) that was being paid in 2000. Should be more like $110k. Say it with me: I-N-F-L-A-T-I-O-N

    Maybe I'm cynical. Maybe DBA's are greedy. Maybe most DBA's can't tell you the difference between a DELETE and TRUNCATE (and how to recover...or not). I DO know that the DBA is an underappreciated resource. I've been there for the 3am failures, the weekend upgrades, the emergency performance tuning (i.e. at the a$$ end of the SDLC), the man on the receiving end of the sh*t-flows-down-hill kiss-up, kick-down management. It's a job that needs an experienced person at the helm but most people burn out after just a few years (myself included). Let me say it this way: I can "DBA" with my eyes closed and fingers taped together but you couldn't PAY me to do the job.

    Anyone else feel that way or is it just me?

    It's going to take a lot of pushing back. I've seen the same type of treatment in several orgs. I think it takes a while for some groups to figure out just how hard it is to manage data, and to keep it managed *right*. There's a level of expertise that is taking some time to become apparent, so it might just be a matter of us all banding together and pushing back when orgs try to get us "on the cheap".

    It's not a matter of greed I don't think. It tends to be a hard job, one that is not often constrained to 40, 50 or 60 hours/week (never from what I've seen, but I've heard of utopias where DBA's actually work reasonable hours), and one where credit rarely trickles down to the right person.

    Besides - I think it's incumbent on employer to keep up with inflation (and that's OUTSIDE of any performance-based raises, etc...)

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?

  • Employers do adjust ranges over time, but not that often. From some large companies I've worked for, they review salaries every 4-5 years, often buying survey results from companies.

    So fill out those salary surveys!

  • Anirban Paul (5/21/2008)


    I agree with Steve, not all cos are like that. My Co gave me a paid holiday trip (expenses taken care by Cos) for 4 days seeing my work. I am working here for 1.5 months. So all is not lost. 🙂

    Heh... good to be an optimist... but, like Loner says, once the company stock is in trouble, forget about trips like that... staying employed during cutbacks will be more of a concern. I've seen lot's of companies that "feel bad" about having to lay people off, but they still do it. Privately owned companies do the same thing. Don't live in fear... but be prepared... everyone is expendible at some point in time.

    BTW... Chrysler just laid off 400 it employees... they outsourced the whole thing. They even had the nerve to ask the employees being laid of to teach the people that were replacing them... heh... that just didn't work so well. 😛

    My company just recently decided to pull up stakes and move to another state. Lot's of folks can't move because they'd take a huge beating because of the "housing crisis".

    My previous company decided the branch I was working at "wasn't profitable" and moved the operation back to their home office in Chicago... no offers for people to move there.

    The company before that managed to get themselves sued to death. No offers of continued employment there, either.

    Company before that made a huge mistake in the 5 and 10 year forcasts... they laid of 2000 out of 3000 people in an area that had no other business to speak of. Didn't affect me, but it could have. Most of the folks in IT got laid off.

    Like I said... be prepared.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Well said Jeff. I am lucky to be in a good co (Till now) and with a good boss. But I also have bad experience. One of my previous company said you are our best employee but we are sorry you are too costly for us now. 🙂

    So it all depends on the cos economic condition.

  • ... and how much the company wants to "keep". No one is indispensible.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Anirban Paul (5/28/2008)


    Well said Jeff. I am lucky to be in a good co (Till now) and with a good boss. But I also have bad experience. One of my previous company said you are our best employee but we are sorry you are too costly for us now. 🙂

    So it all depends on the cos economic condition.

    I've head that nonsense before. How can you be "expensive" when you're a value multiplier for others? <sigh>

    Just smile wide, shake their hand, and be prepared to "charge them appropriately" when they come crying that the DB just fell apart due to lack of maintenance..... It's a "pay now or pay later" routine.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?

  • I heard a lot of managers said IT was not a profit generating department, not liked sales. So when the company is not doing good, it starts layoff non profit employees, so IT is one of them.

    However, the management never thinks for a second, if all the IT people takes a week off, the company cannot survive, if all the sales take a week off, the company still functions perfectly even there is no new profit. 😉

  • Loner (5/28/2008)


    I heard a lot of managers said IT was not a profit generating department, not liked sales. So when the company is not doing good, it starts layoff non profit employees, so IT is one of them.

    However, the management never thinks for a second, if all the IT people takes a week off, the company cannot survive, if all the sales take a week off, the company still functions perfectly even there is no new profit. 😉

    Well Said Loner.

    Yeah Jeff no one is indespensible....:)

  • Anirban Paul (5/28/2008)


    Loner (5/28/2008)


    I heard a lot of managers said IT was not a profit generating department, not liked sales. So when the company is not doing good, it starts layoff non profit employees, so IT is one of them.

    However, the management never thinks for a second, if all the IT people takes a week off, the company cannot survive, if all the sales take a week off, the company still functions perfectly even there is no new profit. 😉

    Well Said Loner.

    Yeah Jeff no one is indespensible....:)

    I've been at the receiving end of that argument. It's all in the packaging. In the org that stated that - we managed to prove that wrong. As a matter of fact - we managed to show that for every dollar invested in our team, we were SAVING them 500. It managed to get them to stop openly saying it - but it still seems the attitude remained. Scary how the prejudices and the blinders just go up.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?

  • Matt has the right idea. You have to package and sell it, show them that value is being generated and it results in reduced costs.

    Of course, at the end of the day, these are costs and without sales to support them, they don't work.

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