February 26, 2015 at 8:40 am
S_Kumar_S (1/28/2015)
After having spent some 13 years with SQL Server and being a Sr. DBA for years, today I just thought of having opinion of other Sr. DBA on "Where do you finally land".I am curious to know what are the career paths after having spent so much time in one technology. I have loved it till now but as you grow senior, you get limited in your choices. The idea of sitting in one company for longer than 4-5 years doesn't appeal me. And there are not many companies who can afford you. So how do you go about it?
Would love to hear from those who started something of their own and good they found it compared to a regular job?
Any other comments around this topic are appreciated.
thx
I've been a SQL server DBA for 15 years now. I started in Hewlett Packard, and moved after 5 years (sad, but the bureaucracy is driving that company downhill) But even today, I am still learning new stuff, specially in the Developer/TSQL area, which is not my forte.
But I don't usually think about landing anywhere. I just use these basics statements as my mottos (in that order):
1) Do I have a good work and life balance with my current job
2) Am I learning new professional skills on my job every year?
3) Is my salary competitive and going up?
If two or more are not being met, especially #1 , it's time for me to move on and look for another job.
But if I am learning new skills every day, my salary is competitive and I have enough available time to spend with my wife, there is no reason for me to move on.
And to clarify, I know that #3 is important. Jobs are not hobbies, but now that I'm older and after working for HP, I realized that no money in the world will compensate or give you back the time that you missed without your family. It may not be important if you are now young or have no kids or wife, but once you get older, you will see that family becomes priority and it could be an important factor in changing careers or jobs.
March 1, 2015 at 9:13 pm
My programming path has gone from "hobbyist game developer" (C, C++ circa 1994/5) through to regular developer up to ~2001 (mostly vb6) , then .net developer with SQL server/data access focus for a couple of years, into pretty much full time (90%+) SQL developer/DBA/code reviewer for the last 8 - 10 years.
Aside: I'm still not entirely sure I understand the term "DBA". Some people take it to mean simply those who know how to keep the backups running and monitor server health, others take it to mean someone who can do this stuff but also knows TSQL inside-out, understands the intricacies of the technology, and so on - ie, more of a lead developer.
I was drawn away from regular application programming over to the SQL side by the more robust arguments for "good design" (ie, based on set theory) than the sometimes-merely-opinion arguments as to what constitutes good design on the "application code" side, and I'm a sucker for predicate logic. (Also I hate web development 😛 )
For the last couple of years I have naturally moved into software architecture, enterprise architecture and (in particular) information architecture space. The information architecture connection is obvious enough, the others may not be so clear but the connection comes from the fact that just about everything in an enterprise touches something the DBA has an eye on, so you get to know the overall software landscape better than just about anyone. This includes noticing where there are architectural conflicts and so on (if you are interested in that kind of thing).
I have absolutely no interest in management. I don't think I'll ever shake the "SQL DBA" side though
March 2, 2015 at 3:26 pm
Don Halloran (3/1/2015)
(Also I hate web development 😛 )
Ah, yeah... we need to you move that smiley face one pixel to the right and change the color on the tongue to be a little less red without making it pink. Also, there needs to be a tiny hint of blush on the cheeks and so that bald people take no offense, please add hair to it. We also need you to interweave it in the 7 Red Lines (1 blue, 2 green, and 4 pink) that we asked you to draw last week. We also need you to put it all into 16 pixels and still be discernible. Thank you for your time.
:-):-D:-P;-):hehe::ermm::blink::crying:
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 2, 2015 at 3:40 pm
Jeff Moden (3/2/2015)
Don Halloran (3/1/2015)
(Also I hate web development 😛 )Ah, yeah... we need to you move that smiley face one pixel to the right and change the color on the tongue to be a little less red without making it pink. Also, there needs to be a tiny hint of blush on the cheeks and so that bald people take no offense, please add hair to it. We also need you to interweave it in the 7 Red Lines (1 blue, 2 green, and 4 pink) that we asked you to draw last week. We also need you to put it all into 16 pixels and still be discernible. Thank you for your time.
:-):-D:-P;-):hehe::ermm::blink::crying:
Indeed, DBA's tend to make singularly bad web developers 🙂 After years of staring at black and white column sets it's easy to think anyone who wants any formating done on their data is spoiled and whiny.
March 2, 2015 at 6:48 pm
ZZartin (3/2/2015)
Jeff Moden (3/2/2015)
Don Halloran (3/1/2015)
(Also I hate web development 😛 )Ah, yeah... we need to you move that smiley face one pixel to the right and change the color on the tongue to be a little less red without making it pink. Also, there needs to be a tiny hint of blush on the cheeks and so that bald people take no offense, please add hair to it. We also need you to interweave it in the 7 Red Lines (1 blue, 2 green, and 4 pink) that we asked you to draw last week. We also need you to put it all into 16 pixels and still be discernible. Thank you for your time.
:-):-D:-P;-):hehe::ermm::blink::crying:
Indeed, DBA's tend to make singularly bad web developers 🙂 After years of staring at black and white column sets it's easy to think anyone who wants any formating done on their data is spoiled and whiny.
Heh... not quite where I was going with all of this. I was a front-end Developer for about 4 years and so my intent was to identify my empathy for any kind of front-end developer that must tolerate the whims of arm-chair designers. I still remember exactly what it was that drove me out of the front-end world. The new boss told me to create a "Warning" field and a "Danger" field (no relation to the great Rodney). Then I was given a color specification for each essentially putting White letters on a Pale Yellow background for the warning and a byte specified particular color of Pink lettering on a Fushia background. I tried to talk my boss out of it but she insisted. I told her that I'd do that right away and that I'd never touch front end code ever again after doing it. And, I haven't.
The following movie reminds me of my front-end days and some of the databases that I've seen others build or have been asked to build.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 3, 2015 at 6:11 am
Jeff Moden (3/2/2015) I told her that I'd do that right away and that I'd never touch front end code ever again after doing it. And, I haven't.
Now that's conviction!
For me the problem wasn't actually nitpicky designers (most shops I've worked at haven't had real designers, so the programmers also do the design. This has positives and negatives...)
It was the request-response, asynchronous, stateless nature of the application, combined with the vastly reduced GUI power of a browser compared to regular old windows forms. Sure, there are times when asynchronous is the way to go, but the fact that you're forced into it no matter what sometimes creates ridiculously inefficient and unnecessary hurdles. As someone who started with games programming, where you have absolute control over the interface and performance is always one of the priorities of code, this was absolutely ghastly.
I'm not sure garbage collection has ever solved the problems it was meant to solve, either. The leading exception I have seen in application code since .net took over, leading by dozens of times over the next closest, is "object reference not set to an instance of an object". Memory leaks might be slightly less frequent, but the problem simply shifted over to object initialization because nobody knows what a pointer is anymore!
Yeah, I'm a grumpy old coder.
March 3, 2015 at 7:27 am
ZZartin (3/2/2015)
Jeff Moden (3/2/2015)
Don Halloran (3/1/2015)
(Also I hate web development 😛 )Ah, yeah... we need to you move that smiley face one pixel to the right and change the color on the tongue to be a little less red without making it pink. Also, there needs to be a tiny hint of blush on the cheeks and so that bald people take no offense, please add hair to it. We also need you to interweave it in the 7 Red Lines (1 blue, 2 green, and 4 pink) that we asked you to draw last week. We also need you to put it all into 16 pixels and still be discernible. Thank you for your time.
:-):-D:-P;-):hehe::ermm::blink::crying:
Indeed, DBA's tend to make singularly bad web developers 🙂 After years of staring at black and white column sets it's easy to think anyone who wants any formating done on their data is spoiled and whiny.
Even web programmers and web designers are two different people. It's just like masonry, electrical, and interior decorating are roles almost exclusively occupied by different people in the brick and mortar world. I'd be suspicious of anyone who claims to truely master all three.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
March 3, 2015 at 7:32 am
Jeff Moden (3/2/2015)
ZZartin (3/2/2015)
Jeff Moden (3/2/2015)
Don Halloran (3/1/2015)
(Also I hate web development 😛 )Ah, yeah... we need to you move that smiley face one pixel to the right and change the color on the tongue to be a little less red without making it pink. Also, there needs to be a tiny hint of blush on the cheeks and so that bald people take no offense, please add hair to it. We also need you to interweave it in the 7 Red Lines (1 blue, 2 green, and 4 pink) that we asked you to draw last week. We also need you to put it all into 16 pixels and still be discernible. Thank you for your time.
:-):-D:-P;-):hehe::ermm::blink::crying:
Indeed, DBA's tend to make singularly bad web developers 🙂 After years of staring at black and white column sets it's easy to think anyone who wants any formating done on their data is spoiled and whiny.
Heh... not quite where I was going with all of this. I was a front-end Developer for about 4 years and so my intent was to identify my empathy for any kind of front-end developer that must tolerate the whims of arm-chair designers. I still remember exactly what it was that drove me out of the front-end world. The new boss told me to create a "Warning" field and a "Danger" field (no relation to the great Rodney). Then I was given a color specification for each essentially putting White letters on a Pale Yellow background for the warning and a byte specified particular color of Pink lettering on a Fushia background. I tried to talk my boss out of it but she insisted. I told her that I'd do that right away and that I'd never touch front end code ever again after doing it. And, I haven't.
The following movie reminds me of my front-end days and some of the databases that I've seen others build or have been asked to build.
I hear you working for a smallish company for a long time I had to deal with plenty of GUI work including web development. I definitely understand the frustration front end developers have to deal with, I guess I took a slightly passive aggressive approach to the problem when I felt like my time was being wasted.
http://marcel-oehler.marcellosendos.ch/comics/ch/1993/01/19930130.gif
Fortunately my boss usually backed me up because I did legitimately have more important things to do.
March 3, 2015 at 8:53 am
Don Halloran (3/3/2015)
Jeff Moden (3/2/2015) I told her that I'd do that right away and that I'd never touch front end code ever again after doing it. And, I haven't.
Now that's conviction!
For me the problem wasn't actually nitpicky designers (most shops I've worked at haven't had real designers, so the programmers also do the design. This has positives and negatives...)
It was the request-response, asynchronous, stateless nature of the application, combined with the vastly reduced GUI power of a browser compared to regular old windows forms. Sure, there are times when asynchronous is the way to go, but the fact that you're forced into it no matter what sometimes creates ridiculously inefficient and unnecessary hurdles. As someone who started with games programming, where you have absolute control over the interface and performance is always one of the priorities of code, this was absolutely ghastly.
I'm not sure garbage collection has ever solved the problems it was meant to solve, either. The leading exception I have seen in application code since .net took over, leading by dozens of times over the next closest, is "object reference not set to an instance of an object". Memory leaks might be slightly less frequent, but the problem simply shifted over to object initialization because nobody knows what a pointer is anymore!
I would offer the opposing viewpoint that managed memory is indispensable for today's developer and the greatest thing since sliced bread. Leave c to the systems programming experts who actually care what a buffer overflow is. Its far better to be handed an uninitialized or bogus reference exception than to simply let the code access whatever memory got accidently pointed to, or even worse, have your "stack smashed for fun and profit."
March 3, 2015 at 9:03 am
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (3/3/2015)
...have your "stack smashed for fun and profit."
Hey! "Smash Your Stack For Fun and Profit!" is the name of my forthcoming intro programming book, how did you get ahold of a copy?!
-----
[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]
March 3, 2015 at 9:09 am
Wayne West (3/3/2015)
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (3/3/2015)
...have your "stack smashed for fun and profit."Hey! "Smash Your Stack For Fun and Profit!" is the name of my forthcoming intro programming book, how did you get ahold of a copy?!
LOL it got leaked!!!@@@
March 3, 2015 at 11:39 am
sql-lover (2/26/2015)
S_Kumar_S (1/28/2015)
After having spent some 13 years with SQL Server and being a Sr. DBA for years, today I just thought of having opinion of other Sr. DBA on "Where do you finally land".I am curious to know what are the career paths after having spent so much time in one technology. I have loved it till now but as you grow senior, you get limited in your choices. The idea of sitting in one company for longer than 4-5 years doesn't appeal me. And there are not many companies who can afford you. So how do you go about it?
Would love to hear from those who started something of their own and good they found it compared to a regular job?
Any other comments around this topic are appreciated.
thx
I've been a SQL server DBA for 15 years now. I started in Hewlett Packard, and moved after 5 years (sad, but the bureaucracy is driving that company downhill) But even today, I am still learning new stuff, specially in the Developer/TSQL area, which is not my forte.
But I don't usually think about landing anywhere. I just use these basics statements as my mottos (in that order):
1) Do I have a good work and life balance with my current job
2) Am I learning new professional skills on my job every year?
3) Is my salary competitive and going up?
If two or more are not being met, especially #1 , it's time for me to move on and look for another job.
But if I am learning new skills every day, my salary is competitive and I have enough available time to spend with my wife, there is no reason for me to move on.
And to clarify, I know that #3 is important. Jobs are not hobbies, but now that I'm older and after working for HP, I realized that no money in the world will compensate or give you back the time that you missed without your family. It may not be important if you are now young or have no kids or wife, but once you get older, you will see that family becomes priority and it could be an important factor in changing careers or jobs.
Totally agreed with you! We're kindda some motto. LOL!
March 3, 2015 at 7:03 pm
patrickmcginnis59 10839 (3/3/2015)
I would offer the opposing viewpoint that managed memory is indispensable for today's developer and the greatest thing since sliced bread. Leave c to the systems programming experts who actually care what a buffer overflow is. Its far better to be handed an uninitialized or bogus reference exception than to simply let the code access whatever memory got accidently pointed to, or even worse, have your "stack smashed for fun and profit."
True enough, which is a good demonstration of the difference between "managed memory" and "garbage collection".
March 4, 2015 at 7:59 am
Having been a DBA since 1986 and worked at least 6 different DBMS including SQLServer since it ran on OS/2, one path is learn a new DBMS, the more you know the wiser you will be. However after a while that too wears thin. I remain a DBA, but generally work as a SysAdmin/Project Manager in ERP systems.
Best way to change things is to take yourself back to school & find out what interests you. Don't be afraid to explore what look like dead ends, sometimes you can't see far enough.
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