May 20, 2010 at 3:31 am
Hi All,
I am currently in a dilemma of choosing my career path. I have been doing DB Developer role (SP writing, Query Tuning etc) for the past 5 years along with VB,ASP works. I did not have much knowledge in .NET though I worked on a short term project. For the last 1 year, I was also working in SSIS (Integration Services).
Now, I am in the important stage of my career where I need to decide my career path. Below are my thoughts.
1. I am interested in DBA role (may be since i don't have much working experience in front end) but did not have experience on this. But DBA (according to me) role is always a hot cake in the market.
2. I can continue as DB Developer along with Performance Tuning, but I am NOT too sure on how long this would help me since nowadays I am NOT seeing many openings just for DB developer and performance tuning.
3. I can choose Business Intelligence developer role. But having experience only in SSIS and also not seeing many opening for Microsoft based Business Intelligence work. There are openings for Business Objects etc.
Also, I am NOT interested to move to full management work. I would like to stick to Technical work and especially DB works give satisfaction to me.
It will very helpful to me if you experts can direct me with your suggestions.
Thanks,
Suresh
Regards,
Suresh Arumugam
May 20, 2010 at 3:39 am
Working on Microsoft BI also needs knowledge in SSAS and SSRS,even you require some knowledge in the programming language like VB.net and C# for some of the script tasks
even i am eager too see experts advice on this
May 20, 2010 at 8:47 am
Thanks Sharath for your comments.
SSC Gurus, please help me with your ideas.
Suresh
Regards,
Suresh Arumugam
May 20, 2010 at 1:34 pm
In the best worlds, you would find a job as a Developer that allowed you to do DBA work. But some shops separate the two (IMHO, for good reason). I would suggest becoming a DBA. I'm a DBA, I was never a developer. However, as a DBA, I am required to performance tune queries, among other things. I also am asked by developers to review their code and see if I can figure out why it's not working (sometimes you work on code for so long you can't see where you went wrong and just need another set of eyes). I also develop scripts/processes to help administer my databases. So, in my experience, I find that a good DBA has to have developer skills, but a developer rarely needs/has DBA skills.
So, my answer is to become a DBA which would allow you to still use/maintain your developer skill set.
-SQLBill
May 20, 2010 at 1:48 pm
My suggestion and I would not consider my self an expert, would be to not limit yourself. In this day in age I really do not believe that it is even necessary to choose a hard path. Develop the skills you need now but remain flexible to every aspect. Unless you are looking at a very specific job right now, then there is no real need to decide in my mind. I have been on both side of the table in the interviewing process and a demonstrated understanding of a process is usually enough. rarely do companies test you knowledge in depth on any given technology. In this day and age you can also often sell your self based on general computer skills. In today's IT world it is extremely easy to acquire any essential skills that you may need to add to your tool belt after your new role is determined. The only thing in IT you can absolutley be sure of is that 10 years from now your daily duties will likely look nothing like they do today. The role simply changes to frequently to pick a hard career path.
Dan
If only I could snap my figures and have all the correct indexes apear and the buffer clean and.... Start day dream here.
May 20, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Suresh Kumar-284278 (5/20/2010)
Hi All,I am currently in a dilemma of choosing my career path. I have been doing DB Developer role (SP writing, Query Tuning etc) for the past 5 years along with VB,ASP works. I did not have much knowledge in .NET though I worked on a short term project. For the last 1 year, I was also working in SSIS (Integration Services).
Now, I am in the important stage of my career where I need to decide my career path. Below are my thoughts.
1. I am interested in DBA role (may be since i don't have much working experience in front end) but did not have experience on this. But DBA (according to me) role is always a hot cake in the market.
2. I can continue as DB Developer along with Performance Tuning, but I am NOT too sure on how long this would help me since nowadays I am NOT seeing many openings just for DB developer and performance tuning.
3. I can choose Business Intelligence developer role. But having experience only in SSIS and also not seeing many opening for Microsoft based Business Intelligence work. There are openings for Business Objects etc.
Also, I am NOT interested to move to full management work. I would like to stick to Technical work and especially DB works give satisfaction to me.
It will very helpful to me if you experts can direct me with your suggestions.
Thanks,
Suresh
If you choose based on money or position alone, you'll be disappointed. Ask yourself, what is your passion about any of those postions?
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
May 21, 2010 at 9:10 am
Thanks all guys for your time and valuable suggestions. SSC group always helped me with good suggestions. that's great!
I would say that I am interested in DBA work though I don't currently have any experience on that. Since I already have SSIS and DB development and Tuning experience, i guess I could proceed to pick up DBA role.
However, no company can offer me DBA role even junior DBA if I don't have experience. So, may be I would need to take up some external training classes on my own to kick start and demonstrate that knowledge to get into some projects in my company (truly no clues for me as of now on how to proceed to get DBA experience)
Could you guys please help me on this? How can I gain DBA knowledge? (may be this question look stupid.. But I am blank 🙁 )
Suresh
Regards,
Suresh Arumugam
May 21, 2010 at 9:26 am
I can tell you with confidence that in this day in age a demonstrated ability to gain skills in a flexible envoronment will score more points in an interveiw room than a demonstrated level of expierence.
Technology chagnes so quickly companies now look for more than past expierence in a narrow skill set. I am a DBA now in SQL server and before I got this job I had never touched a SQL Server. I have worked in a SQL environment many years but in a sybase environment. The fact that I had not touched a SQL server before made little difference compared to my demonstrated track record of learning new skill sets quickly.
As far as where to begin to gain that knowledge Microsoft has quite a few virtual labs that can be helpful.
Dan
If only I could snap my figures and have all the correct indexes apear and the buffer clean and.... Start day dream here.
May 24, 2010 at 4:23 am
thaks Dan! I will continue with the virtual labs.
All of your suggestions were helpful. Thanks all again!
-Suresh
Regards,
Suresh Arumugam
May 27, 2010 at 9:12 am
By my opinion, there is no sharp line dividing DBA and DB developer work. I had some jobs which had title DBA, but I was writing stored procedures and designed databases. And vice versa, now I am DB developer, but I am involved in DR project and soon will work on project to build SSAS cubes. So as Dan noted above, don't limit yourself to one or another side of SQL Server work. Do whatever you enjoy the most, what gives you more satisfaction (as well as good compensation, ha-ha !), no matter how it sounds like.
In a short, I suggest you to follow all three directions outlined in your original post.
May 28, 2010 at 1:55 am
Thanks for the suggestion!
Infact, I just have completed BI Sql 2008 training to cover SSAS and SSRS and also planning to ungerdo DBA related trainings.
Suresh
Regards,
Suresh Arumugam
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