Interviews Part 2
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Okay, I read this article and its predecessor, read about 100 posts related to it, and no one yet that I've seen has made this point yet. So, here goes...
Imagine this: You're a PC tech, replacing toner cartridges, swapping video cards and such. But you're interested it databases. So, you spend hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars, and get your MCDBA certification. You're just getting going with your database career, when ... you guessed it ... the company folds and you get laid off.
After licking your wounds (and blaming dozens of other people for your former employer's demise), you open up Monster.com. To your joy and amazement, you see the following job opening:
Employer: Blibnibitz, Inc. (My apologies if anyone is actually using this name!)
Position: Database Administrator
<st1
laceName>Salary</st1laceName> <st1laceType>Range</st1laceType>: Better than a PC TechExperience: 0 - 3 years
Education: None necessary, will train on job. But an MCDBA or degree would be really nice, though.
Details: Need someone to make databases from our Excel spreadsheets for us. Must be willing to back them up once in a while, and is willing to take a stab at it if they ever need to be recovered. The ability to drag-and-drop the fields to a Microsoft Access form is a big plus.
If only it were that easy...
It's usually more like:
Employer: Blibnibitz, Inc.
Position: Database Administrator
<st1
laceName>Salary Range:</st1laceName> Buko bucks (but not as good as it was 10 years ago)Experience: 40+ years experience with RDBMS systems
Education: MBA or BS required. Must have thorough programming knowledge in T-SQL, PL/SQL, VB.NET, C#, HTML, XML, Java, VBScript, JavaScript, Perl, SQL Server 6.5, 7, 2000 & 2005, Oracle 8i,9i and 10g, MySQL, Sybase, MS Access, FoxPro, Windows Server 2000, 2003, Unix OS, Linux OS, Data warehousing, OLAP reporting, Query performance tuning, Embarcadero ER Diagramming tools, Hyperion, etc., etc. etc....
Details: Enterprise wide back-up and recovery of replicated databases on 1,000's of company servers. Responsible for multi-tier deployment including execution of system analysis and design for database systems. Apply critical security patches and perform database upgrades. Provide information by collecting, analyzing, and summarizing database performance and trends. Creating and executing DTS packages. Etc., Etc, Etc...
On one end of the spectrum, there is the true senior DBA. You know the type, the ones who seem to have had their brain surgically replaced with a multiprocessor clustered RAID 5 server at birth, and have retained every piece of programming knowledge that has crossed their path over the last 30 years.
On the other end of the spectrum, there is the "Tommy Lee goes to College, Part 2: Tommy Lee learns SQL Server" crowd...
"Tommy, what's a clustered index?"
"Uh ... huh, huh ... the black book where I keep chicks' phone numbers in?"
(...and he's a multi-millionaire ... go figure!)
However, most of us fall somewhere in between...
Now, of course, most businesses are reluctant to trust development, administration, and disaster recovery of their business-critical data to someone who has "done it once in a lab environment." It doesn't sit well with managers and investors. I understand that. However...
The moral of my story is this: Until there are some sort of job openings, from companies that are willing to take junior DBA's and train them to get them up to speed, then junior DBA's will continue to lie on, or otherwise artificially inflate their resume's, just to get their foot in the door. If you're in the situation of the guy in the first paragraph, as many are, you aren't God's gift to SQL Server yet, but you need to put food on your table until you get there.
Thanks for humoring me.
P.S.: Experience: 40+ years experience with RDBMS systems? E.F. Codd released the DB relational model in 1970, which was only 35 years ago. Did you catch that first time through? Something else to watch out for!
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" Buko bucks (but not as good as it was 10 years ago)"
Actually, that's the real problem I see with lots of job postings.
- 10+ years experience
- Expert in [insert every single technology you can think of, here]
- $50,000/year max salary
Uhh, yeah, RIGHT. What companies don't seem to get is that if you're going to ask for the world, you really need to pay for it.
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Adam Machanic
whoisactive -
Adam, I agree with you and I don't agree at the same time.
I consider myself more of a systems administrator who also knows SQL to the level a good junior DBA would (I have no experience with design, but I can secure, backup and tune a SQL server pretty well, do DTS etc...) and I recently came across an opening for a SysAdmin where they wanted 8+ years of experience, an MCSE or MCDBA, knowldege of Linux, SQL, MySQL, Cisco, Apache, IIS, AS/400, Exchange, Sendmail and you have to carry a pager. This is in Atlanta. They were looking to pay $55,000 max.
Now, I asked some people about this and got two opinions...
- The company has no concept of what a person like that is worth in the current market
- The company knows but doesn't want to spend that much
In either case, the company will find someone to fill that position but, more than likely, the person will not stay more than a year. The person who fills that job will either be some down-on-his-luck out-of-work really good SysAdmin (like myself
) or will be a total liar. The person will either leave for more pay or be fired for incompetence.I also agree with the previous post on it being damned near impossible to find a "junior DBA" position unless you happen to be in a company where they need that skillset and you can convince them to train you.
-- J.T.
"I may not always know what I'm talking about, and you may not either."
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I'd be curious to hear from anyone who actually started as a "Junior DBA". All of the DBAs I know moved from development or IT positions, and were at least somewhat-senior in those positions before jumping over to fulltime DBA (at which point they had enough general skills that they were no longer "junior"). I haven't ever actually met a person working as a junior DBA. Does such a person exist? Show thyself
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Adam Machanic
whoisactive -
I have to agree with grasshopper. The email (although meant to be a wake up call for the individual) came across as insulting. The author did a great job in protecting his company and their interests by providing a fairly thorough interview and subsequent due diligence. That was his responsibility. What was ALSO his responsibility was to NOT make the individual feel lesser of an individual because of his knowledge base and that is the risk the email presented. Who knows what the individual was like. Would this be the one "life occurrence" that had lasting dertimental effects. One would think hopefully not but if there is one thing I have learned in my life thus far, is that just when you think you know something, poof. I can understand the frustration of the author but the leaders must lead. Now what the hell are these BOOKMARK LOOKUPS lol
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Doesn't every DBA start as a junior DBA? I see DBA's as being a senior level IT postition though, so a senior developer or admin might become a junior DBA. I doubt that I would ever hire somebody straight out of school, or new to IT, as a DBA. I want somebody with some serious battle-scars to watch over our data.
There are some jobs that just need a wide range of experience to be effective at and DBA and Data Architect are some of them. A senior DBA is a candidate to become a junior Data Architect etc... DBA is not an entry level job in my book.
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If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
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Technically, maybe.
But no one with 10 years of IT experience is going to take the job "junior"-ANYTHING. At least, no one I know.
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Adam Machanic
whoisactive -
Yeah, I suppose your're right. I don't recall a DBA position with "junior" in the title anywhere.
/*****************
If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
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Actually, I started my IT career as a junior DBA (this was in 1999, before the dot com meltdown). I was working for a large private company in Minnesota and going to school part-time so I could switch to IT. The DBA group had 3 senior DBA's and they were looking for someone to do the routine work, i.e. set up users, backup databases, help developers with simple problems. But my situation is the exception, not the rule.
Diane
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So how was it? Were you mentored? Do you feel that you were "brought up" well by the senior DBAs in the organization? Do you wish you'd taken a different career path?
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Adam Machanic
whoisactive -
Oh yes, I'm glad I took the job. The senior DBA's were great at teaching me although I did give them some grief from time to time. Like the time I made a production database "disappear" while learning about the SQL Server 6.5 copy object wizard. Funny, now I have a general distaste for all types of wizards...
Since then I've moved on to other jobs, moving back and forth between DBA and Database developer positions. I'm currently a Database Engineer(developer) for a .com, and I get to work with SQL Server 2005!
Diane
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They don't call toilet cleaners, toilet cleaners either. They are either sanitation engineers or hygiene executives.
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Which goes back to my original point... since there are no 'Junior DBA' jobs, the hoards of junior DBA's are going to inflate their resume's and try to squirm through the interview process to try to get a "Senior DBA' job.
The result for the interviwer is going to be a lot of people who look good on paper, that think that a varchar is a char that was left on the grill for too long.
However, from the interviewee's perspective, what choice do you have? You have to get a job somehow, and you don't want to abandon the education you just worked so hard to get.
No easy answer, is there?
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"a varchar is a char that was left on the grill for too long"
I love it!
/*****************
If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
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