June 5, 2008 at 10:25 am
My degree is in Physical Education, now figure out how I got into SQL Server Administration and Development!
As far as specialization goes, are you talking about specializing in SQL Server or in a sub-system of SQL Server? Is it specializing in Microsoft technologies (SQL Server, Windows, .NET)? Is it specializing in database administration or development (I'd like to think I could transition to another RDBMS relatively quickly) or in middleware\UI development (.NET, java, etc...)?
For most positions I see advertised, they are looking for a specialist in the main area (SQL Server, .NET) with general knowledge of other areas. Rarely have I seen a SQL Server position that did not mention .NET or a .NET position with mentioning SQL Server.
We can harp on the long lists or unattainable requirements that recruiters or HR put out there, but in my experience if you have the main or lead skill and some knowledge of one or 2 others with some accomplishments in them on your resume (CV) you will likely get a call. Then in the interview if you demonstrate a willingness and ability to learn (admit you don't know the answer, but so know how to find it) and show some people skills you have a good shot. I have had a couple of offers for jobs I did not really think I was qualified for, but I showed the above and it was enough.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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June 5, 2008 at 1:02 pm
For the last couple years I have been doing SQL Server only interviews. There are positions with only SQL Server no dot net. A couple obvious ones would be DBA/Developer in a smallish company, or BI developer.
It's an awesome technology to be a specialist in, and my phone rings off the hook every time I'm done with a client. My guess is, unless you work 12 hour days you are not an expert in both SQL Server and dot net. You may be good at both, but expertise comes with time devoted exclusively to the pecadillos of a particular platform.
June 5, 2008 at 2:21 pm
My guess is, unless you work 12 hour days you are not an expert in both SQL Server and dot net. You may be good at both, but expertise comes with time devoted exclusively to the pecadillos of a particular platform.
If 27 years in this business has taught me anything, its taught me that your guess is wrong. Dont equate time spent per day with 'expertise'. It does not work that way and indeed, there are people who work very little and are truly geniuses, and others who work very long hours and sadly just dont pick up things too well.
As well, saying the "pecadillos of a particular platform" suggests that these are static (which I know you did not mean) but no platform, no technology, no DBMS, no OS, no nothing in technology is static - so those pecadillos, so valuable now, will be gone and irrelavant before you know it!
I am an 'expert' at a few operating systems that are all but dead (CP/M, MP/M, Pick, DOS...) and at a number of DBMS's that are gone (QNE, Databus, dBase, Clipper, QuickSilver...) so my 'pecadillos' in those systems are, er, well, kaput!
If you think you will be doing SQL and .NET work in say, 10 years, then you dont know much about Microsoft because by that time, these too will likely be dead or dying, replaced by the next paradigm.
Expertise is fluid, transient, and a product of devotion - which I think you have - but in this business dont expect that to feed your entire career. You will be always learning, and thus your 'level of expertise' (or not) constantly changes both in content, and value.
June 5, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Disagree. Each product release is finite and static.
I don't say I'm a SQL Server expert, I say I'm an expert at SQL Server 2005. Unless you know everything you're not an expert. Don't know CTEs? Don't know about DDL triggers and never wrote CLR sprocs? not an expert.
Maybe you use the word expert differently than I do. I've been in this business also for a very long time (12 years) and I have been awesome at many technologies that have come and gone. Expertise is different to me.
June 5, 2008 at 4:06 pm
James Raddock (6/5/2008)
Disagree. Each product release is finite and static.I don't say I'm a SQL Server expert, I say I'm an expert at SQL Server 2005. Unless you know everything you're not an expert. Don't know CTEs? Don't know about DDL triggers and never wrote CLR sprocs? not an expert.
Maybe you use the word expert differently than I do. I've been in this business also for a very long time (12 years) and I have been awesome at many technologies that have come and gone. Expertise is different to me.
I'm sure that there are many out there that would disagree with you about having to know/write CLR sprocs before being considered an expert at SQL Server 2005. Also, 12 years is not a long time. I've been in this field for 30 years, and seen a lot of changes.
Concepts and principles still apply, it's how you use/apply them that have changed and will continue to change in this environment.
😎
June 5, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Lynn Pettis (6/5/2008)
I'm sure that there are many out there that would disagree with you about having to know/write CLR sprocs before being considered an expert at SQL Server 2005. Also, 12 years is not a long time. I've been in this field for 30 years, and seen a lot of changes.Concepts and principles still apply, it's how you use/apply them that have changed and will continue to change in this environment.
I would have to agree with you Lynn. Not knowing one aspect of the technology, especially one not widely implemented, like CLR, doesn't exclude you from being an expert. If you don't know service broker, are you excluded? What about SSRS? What about data mining in SSAS? Those are all under the umbrella of "SQL Server 2005." There are folks who are well respected MVPs, folks that when they talk any SQL Server DBA worth his/her salt sits down and listens, who would say they don't know CLR very well at all.
And time isn't necessarily a factor when it comes to expertise. I had a high school student who figured out the bulk of SMS 2.0 in a couple of days. Blew completely past the trained and experienced SMS expert I had on staff (and he was good himself). On the other hand, I've seen folks with many a year of experience who struggle with basic things. Makes you wonder how they got along because it's concepts and principles they're failing on. Concepts and principles that you come to find out they haven't ever known but yet they continue to scrape on by through sheer perseverence.
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
June 5, 2008 at 5:29 pm
That comes to this, do you have x years experience or 1 year experience x times over. I have seen both. I believe I am in the former rather than the latter, myself.
I do agree that time in the field may not always make an expert, but if you take the time to learn new technologies and concepts along the way it helps.
😎
June 5, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Lynn Pettis (6/5/2008)
That comes to this, do you have x years experience or 1 year experience x times over. I have seen both. I believe I am in the former rather than the latter, myself.I do agree that time in the field may not always make an expert, but if you take the time to learn new technologies and concepts along the way it helps.
😎
That's essentially why it can be useful to try to characterize yourself at whatever levels you have in the various sub-disciplines of SQL server, and not on the SQL Server level as a whole.
Steve touched on it before in a previous Editorial - we all gravitate towards specific area we do within the SQL Server realm. I doubt a lot of us have touched every single possible aspect of any single edition (sorry James), and even if we had - doing something once doesn't make me an expert at it. So - I'm okay with not calling myself an expert at SQL Server 2005, because I deal primarily in certain specific areas, and not the whole enchilada. But then again - I know enough to get myself into the right ballpark fairly quickly, and I'm fairly successful at knowing where to find the resources it takes to supplement those fact not making the honor roll in my grey matter.
Guru/Expert/generalist/utilty guy/novice. Pick your ranking, but more importantly back it up, and keep striving to get better. I personally prefer to sell myself short and deliver more than the other way around, so I'm really comfortable with generalist right now....
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
June 6, 2008 at 6:14 am
Matt Miller (6/5/2008)
Lynn Pettis (6/5/2008)
...keep striving to get better.
I think Matt hit it on the head. No matter what you already know, it's the striving that makes the difference in the end. Technology is so evanescent that sitting back on your laurels is the best way to make yourself irrelevant.
I don't really know what "expert" means. I figured out how to design and deploy a fairly sophisticated SSIS system and SSRS/SSAS/ProClarity analytics tier through SharePoint that went into production in about 5 month's time, start to finish. I had no prior experience with SSRS/SharePoint/ProClarity and very little in SSAS.
Does that make me an expert at any one or any combination of those things? Who knows. All I know is that it still works, and works well. And that's all my former employer cared about.
The problem comes when you try to show potential employers that your 2 years in X is probably equivalent to a lot of peoples' 4 years.
I'll agree with a lot of people on this board that time does not equate to expertise or proficiency. (In fact, sometimes too much time in a technology at the same place builds bad habits that are hard to break.) When I interview potentials, I'm more interested in how resourceful they are.
At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is: getting the job done, and done well.
Being an "expert" is not a prerequisite for getting the job done.
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|Ted Pin >>
June 6, 2008 at 7:53 am
I humbly bow down to Lynn Pettis - she's right. Keep striving and yeah, the fundementals are the backbone 95% of the time, and mix that with a devotion to quality work and anyone can go far.
As for what is an "expert"? Well, I can write CLR procs but I dont consider myself an "expert" because I am always learning some new trick or technique in both .NET and SQL Server - not to mention JScript, C#, etc etc.
I have never forgotten a guy I worked for who used to ask a good question - Is he/she an "expert" or "eckspurt" - the latter being someone with too large an ego to learn anything, let alone admit they dont know it all.
Of course, here in the USA as we have demonstrated rather well to the world, we have an entire government full of "eckspurts" - thats why we have done so well with the economy, hurricane Katrina, and Iraq! :pinch:
June 6, 2008 at 8:19 am
Blandry -
psst....Lynn's a HE....:)
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
June 6, 2008 at 9:06 am
With the rate of changes in some technology, even SQL Server, I feel like I've got 1 year of experience many times over in some areas (SSIS, Service Broker, etc).
June 6, 2008 at 9:43 am
blandry (6/6/2008)
I have never forgotten a guy I worked for who used to ask a good question - Is he/she an "expert" or "eckspurt" - the latter being someone with too large an ego to learn anything, let alone admit they dont know it all.
Where I work, I am considered the expert in a lot of things IT related... security, IIS, SQL Server, AD, etc. Why? Because when something is given to me, I usually come back with the right answer or the right approach. How? I search for the information and I have no qualms asking for help / advice / guidance from other knowledgeable folks. In fact, even if I think I know the answer (and especially if I am *positive* I do) I tend to ask others to see if they confirm what I'm thinking.
I make no secret of my approach and have walked anyone willing to learn how I go about doing the research. Simple things like, "If you don't get a hit on exactly what you're looking for, make the search request less specific and narrow back down using synonyms and other pieces of info related to what you're looking for." Unfortunately, I have found some folks would rather rely on the people who know how to get the answer than actually do it themselves. I don't understand why they are that way, because that's foreign to me, but that's reality.
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
June 6, 2008 at 9:47 am
Yes... Already apologized to Lynn privately - but mea culpa publicly too. Not the first time I clicked a button without a little deeper thought! (Thats why they dont let me near the 'launch missles' button) :w00t:
June 6, 2008 at 10:56 am
K. Brian Kelley (6/6/2008)
blandry (6/6/2008)
I have never forgotten a guy I worked for who used to ask a good question - Is he/she an "expert" or "eckspurt" - the latter being someone with too large an ego to learn anything, let alone admit they dont know it all.Where I work, I am considered the expert in a lot of things IT related... security, IIS, SQL Server, AD, etc. Why? Because when something is given to me, I usually come back with the right answer or the right approach. How? I search for the information and I have no qualms asking for help / advice / guidance from other knowledgeable folks. In fact, even if I think I know the answer (and especially if I am *positive* I do) I tend to ask others to see if they confirm what I'm thinking.
I make no secret of my approach and have walked anyone willing to learn how I go about doing the research. Simple things like, "If you don't get a hit on exactly what you're looking for, make the search request less specific and narrow back down using synonyms and other pieces of info related to what you're looking for." Unfortunately, I have found some folks would rather rely on the people who know how to get the answer than actually do it themselves. I don't understand why they are that way, because that's foreign to me, but that's reality.
I try to find answers myself also, but there have been times where I just couldn't find what I was looking for and went to someone else who has the mining sites like Microsofts Knowledge Base down to an art form. He's been able to find things for me in minutes after I had spent hours searching. Sometimes, you have to go to a "master".
😎
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