Why are DBAs not paid for knowledge and other IT Professionals are?

  • DBAs are being asked to know everything for 6 figures which cap out for most at 135k a year with Senior experience.

    So, what does this mean, you get a DBA who knows a lot of everything,  from hardware to development on all levels and certified but DBAs get little to nothing in return for compensation?

    I do not understand why so much is expected out of DBAs when others such as software developers have little knowledge of their job to get paid almost as much as a DBA or more. Then you have the cybersecurity folks whom ask the dba for help and barely know stigs, not certified, know little to nothing about security,  making 180k as a cybersecurity professional, starting out, right?

    I know this sounds like a rant but if you want DBAs to know everything (write t-sql, database administration, help develop applications, hardware, vmware administration, storage, networking, powershell, other rdbms', other languages, ssis, ssrs, encryption, linux, putty, pl/sql, redhat, high availability oh and don't stop there cloud as well, etc...) then PAY US FOR IT.

    Pay us twice/three/four times as much as a developer, .net guy, network guy, c# developer, cyber security, etc., etc. because we are required to have a lot of their skills as well or more plus more knowledge about indefinite subjects while performing the masters of the DBA art.

    This is ridiculous and I feel unless someone can give me a solid reason why I have to know everything for IT Professionals not in the DBA field to know not even 1/3 of the skills in my field in comparison to their field then I cannot justify why DBAs should be available and it might be time to switch careers.

    Outside the DBA realm, individuals get paid the same or more which makes me not able to justify any reason for keeping up with all these ridiculous requirements which helps me do everyone "else's job". This results in help desk contacting DBAs when the network went down overnight, the disk failed but the DBA needs to fix, oh and yes I have had to power on nics, know more about hardware more than your hardware guy however I am not paid for it.  I get stuck with "living to work" as opposed to "working to live" which I never signed up for, I want my work life balance and to have personal time also!

    I have a better chance at changing careers, leading a DBA Movement and watching companies fall when the DBAs they didn't appreciate are gone and your vmware guy is trying to manage your rdbms with no skills breaking things they didn't know broke.

    Instead change careers, do nothing like my predecessor in my new career, get paid more, just like the above non-DBA "professionals". It be so easy to keep up with nothing skills or the little skills these "professionals" have.

    DBAs need to stop this nonsense and refuse to work without the pay we should be getting for our expected services. I'd be happy to provide all this knowledge to a company, do everyone else's job for their salary (you would have paid them) on top of my own.

    Appreciate DBAs, pay them for their skills or start making the hardware, network, vmware, .net developer, C# developer, software developer etc. do their own job. Bring back the DBA title to DBA  not DBA (+), the (+) is hiding from the job title and you know it.

    I am interested in seeing why this is happening in the first place therefore I am asking the question or I'd post in a blog and get comments. This is a legitimate question and I respect your responses. Please refrain from insults and facetious comments as this question is for an understanding and for to bring light to this issue.

    Also as a side note I love when someone labels SQL Server as easy when the same folks do not understand anything other than the basics or how to use the gui and say that is SQL Server. So please do not try it. Thanks for your responses in advance.

     

  • I feel your pain Sir, but have you compared your salary to what Brent has shared on google docs?

    If you feel underappreciated, there are many other jobs and contracts out there, even during the pandemic.

    Sounds like time to take chance!

    [font="Verdana"]Town of Mount Royal, QC
    SQL Server DBA since '99
    MCDBA, MCITP, PMP, MVP '10, Azure Data Platform Data Engineer
    hugo@intellabase.com [/font]
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qnyiGWyGvDz6Q2VtLPGEsRufy9CUqw-t/view (MCDBA 2001, data eng associate coming asap)

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