So if you know me via Twitter or my blog you

probably know that as of about a month or two ago I joined the

fantastic team at
Pragmatic Works. This

transition was rather significant for me as I would be moving from

the world of administration to the development side of SQL Server

in being a BI consultant. This series will be a kind of chronicle

of my personal journey through the transition from a DBA (with a

social media complex) to a BI developer in one of the top BI shops

around.

My Background

So my background in IT

is pretty diverse and while it was never my intentioned path, I’m

very grateful for every step of the way. In college my plans were

actually to become a web developer. Unfortunately (or rather

fortunately), I never got the necessary skills I really needed

(read also: .NET or Java skills) to get a job in that field after

graduation. I wound up going the ground-up IT route and started my

career as a PC tech. Again, I lucked out in this role as I was

exposed to various facets of IT including doing some light system

administration, Cisco networking, and SQL Server administration on

top of my duties as a desktop guy. During my time in that

organization I eventually moved up to a full-fledged system

administrator so my skillsets grew to include VMware administration

duties as well, which would up helping me land my next gig at the

hospital. As an administrator I also spent a lot of time studying

up on the (then) new release of SQL Server, SQL Server 2005. As my

knowledge of the product grew I moved on to a larger environment

that allowed me to expand on and apply that knowledge. It was

during this time that I started plugging into the community and

ramped up on blogging, tweeting and presenting. Thanks to those

actions I was able to network with tons of fantastic folks in the

community (I’m so spoiled living in Florida, way too many awesome

SQL pros here) and get to learn a bit about everything. Although I

got to learn lots of cool stuff about other aspects of SQL Server

(read also: BI stack) I never got a chance to really explore/apply

that portion of the stack in my environment.

Opportunity

Knocks…and it wears Sandals

Meet Mr. Opportunity

Meet

Mr. Opportunity

Fast forward a couple of

years and I realized I needed to move on again to grow. Long story

short I wound up in Jacksonville working for the illustrious Scott

Gleason (Blog

|Twitter).

During my time in Jacksonville I took part in the
Jacksonville SQL User Group,

which gave me more of a chance to talk more with the Pragmatic

guys. After some back and forth, and some great guidance and

mentoring from Scott, I decided to move my career towards a new

direction and try out the business intelligence side of SQL Server.

This move was especially daunting for me as going from DBA to Dev

means: 1) I’m now the butt of developer jokes 2) I’m now starting

at the bottom of Mount Learning Curve. Luckily for me I’m now

working with one of the best business intelligence shops in the

world to help me get ramped up.

Making the

Switch

One of the best things about going to work for

Pragmatic Works has been the support they offer. If you’ve ever

spent any amount of time with anyone from Pragmatic you know how

fantastic, helpful and all-around awesome these folks are. That’s

not a mistake, that’s company culture. In the last few years I’ve

learned, taught, blogged and presented on my own in order to better

myself and to give back to the community. I still get to do that

now, only its part of my job description now (I’m serious!).

Earlier I mentioned being at the bottom of Mount Learning Curve.

Pragmatic Works is full of badass business

intelligence Sherpas to help you get up that hill faster

than you ever thought possible. One of the cool things we offer is

an internal mentoring program. New folks are paired with seasoned

consultants and we all help each other climb these knowledge hills

together. Right now I’ve been paired with Brad Schacht (Blog |Twitter),

whom I’ve also spent quite a bit of time on the road with lately on

our current project, and he has been an invaluable SSIS resource.

Cool thing about this dynamic is that the learning goes two-ways

since I’m coming from an administrative background I’ve been able

to share my knowledge of administration, virtualization and how

PowerShell is going to slowly take over the world with Brad and

others. In addition to the one on one relationship with your mentor

you also have all of the awesome resources at Pragmatic Works to

ask help from. Check out some of the roster: Adam Jorgensen (Blog | Twitter)

Devin Knight (Blog | Twitter)

Patrick LeBlanc (Blog |

Twitter)

Brian McDonald (Blog | Twitter)

Mike

Davis (Blog)

Sherri

McDonald

Mark Stacey (Blog)

Dustin Ryan (Blog)

Yeah

quite the lineup eh? And that’s only a portion of our company!

Which kind of leads me to my next part…

Working With

All-Stars

Some of you may look at that list and say

“holy crap, I’d never be able to work there because of blah blah

blah”. No offense but please just throw that kind of thinking out

the door. Yes, many of those names on that list have made quite a

name for themselves in the community either through presenting,

blogging or writing books. Believe it or not, you can do it too!

The beauty of working for Pragmatic is that if it’s your goal to

become the best of the best, and eventually even write a book or

two, you’re given the opportunity here in spades! Lately our

company has been growing, and will continue to do so, into 2011. We

are looking for passionate folks at ALL

levels to join our team. I’ve spoken with many who

are intimidated to apply because of various reasons. Everyone on

that list started out at the bottom at some point and built

themselves up to where they are today. If you’re looking for a

chance to sharpen/expand your current skill set; if you’re looking

for an environment where education is not only encouraged but it’s

part of your job; if you’re looking for a passionate and supportive

environment in which to grow then I can’t recommend enough that you

submit your

resume today and join our team! I know this sounds like

an infomercial but I really do feel this strongly about

this organization.

Where to Next?

Well I mentioned

this is going to be a series of posts. Right now I’m making my way

through the
Professional

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services book as

part of my learning plan. I’ll be blogging this week on a cool

little learning project inspired from Aaron Nelson’s (Blog |
Twitter)

PowerShell code to download

all videos from a site. My SSIS experiment was to take

all of those videos, rename them according to their formal title,

and move them to an archive folder, so keep an eye out for it and

thanks for following along!