We increasingly move towards specialization.
How much knowledge does you in-house staff need? Should you run with a shoestring staff to maintain operations and then use consultants for any additional or specialized work?
It's a tough question and I think that many companies tackle this in waves. They'll hire everyone they need for a period of time and then when they look to restructure and perhaps change focus or projects, they let people go. Unless your particular specialty is seen a mission critical, and even then unless you're the only person that understands it, you might not be the person kept around.
Or even worse. Suppose you were the DTS expert and learned the ins and outs, built complicated packages, and more, and now your boss tells you now we've moved the SSIS development to another group and we want you to learn Reporting Services so our annoying boss can just come to you for reports and not bother the development team.
I don't mind learning new technologies, but I hate to be told which ones I have to learn.
And yet as you become more specialized, it's increasingly possible that you might pick a dead end specialty, at least at your company. You might get the choice of changing companies or changing focus. My guess is that the more specialized that you become, the less willing you are to change your focus and move in a completely different area.
I think that more and more there will be a need for the two-minute expert. People that know small parts of the system extremely well, and you can call on them for very short engagements. Just like we have consultants now for things like SSIS, Database Mirroring, etc., but I think they'll be more and more of these experts and the ways to find and engage them, will become easier to navigate over time.
Especially as more and more of them raise their visibility and success stories on the Internet.
As SQL Server and other software packages grow to include more and more features, it's harder and harder to be an expert on the system. More and more of us generalize on the platform and then specialize in one or two areas. There's nothing wrong with that and I'd encourage most of you to follow that path.
And if your specialty becomes strong enough and there's the demand, you might just find yourself working for a new boss: yourself.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
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