Vice President of Database Administration
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Our client in Sunrise, FL is in need of a VP of Database Administration on their SQL Server 2000 database. I have listed the description below. They are paying up to 100k plus 20% bonus, and Pre-IPO stock options (they are not a .com company).
Florida candidates ONLY.
SUMMARY:
Provide technical and management leadership to a group of Data Base
Administrators. Technical expertise is needed in the design,
implementation, and maintenance of relational database management systems
(RDBMSs) that support the companies business applications. Ensures logical
data models are mapped effectively and efficiently into physical data models
that take advantage of the characteristics of the specific database
management system used. Technically support multiple databases that run
enterprise-wide business applications, which are accessed by multiple
departments. Lead the team to create database topologies that have zero
latency in replication.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
1. Manages and lead database personnel in the design, implementation and
maintenance of all database administration functions and responsibilities.
2. Reviews, develops, and designs data models using standard diagramming
techniques, in conjunction with application development teams; creates
logical data models and translates into physical database structures that
integrate with existing or proposed database structures.
3. Monitors relational databases to optimize database performance, resource
use, and physical implementations of databases; addresses a variety of
database integration issues including synchronization between disparate
databases, integration, maintenance/conversion, capacity planning issues,
and new applications.
4. Maintains development, test, and production RDBMS environments.
5. Monitors and maintains database security and database software, in
cooperation with data security administrators.
6. Provides advice to applications programmers in the effective use of
database languages; advises on troubleshooting, exception processing needs,
and other data management issues.
7. Maintains availability and integrity of databases through multiple access
schemes; facilitates sharing of common data by overseeing proper key and
index management and data dictionary maintenance.
8. Evaluate and recommend testing and evaluation of new procedures,
software, and hardware.
9. Monitors and manages database backups, logs, and journals; installs,
maintains, and upgrades database software; restores and/or recovers data as
required.
10. Creates, procures and maintains various database related documents such
as manuals and programmers handbooks.
11. Participate in 24-hour on-call support.
12. Maintains a broad knowledge of state-of-the-art technology, equipment,
and/or systems.
13. Performs miscellaneous job-related duties as assigned.
MINIMUM JOB REQUIREMENTS:
Bachelor's degree and at least 10 years experience directly related to the
duties and responsibilities specified.
Position requires: a) Management and internal and external customer
interaction skills; b) Creating, maintaining, and monitoring relational
databases; c) creating and maintaining documents such as manuals and
programmer handbooks; d) installing and upgrading database software; and e)
testing and evaluating systems to optimize database performance.
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Hm... not really related to the above post.
It might be my lack of american management hierachies, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Apparently american companies do have a lot of vice presidents for each and every need.
What exactly is a vice president?
What are his competencies?
Are you nothing unless you are a vice president?
Please take this as a serious question!
Frank
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Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url] -
If it's a serious question I'll try to answer, because I was fascinated by the title of this post and read it as well.
Largish companies have many vice presidents. The normal structure is a Chief Executive Officer (usually called a president) or Chief Operations Officer (may or may not be called president, maybe some kind of Sr. VP) has a staff, and that entire staff is usually a group of VP's oriented around heading a department.
For example, our company has a CEO, then VP's of Operations, Sales, Field Service, Information Technology, Finance. Normally there might be one of H/R and Marketing but we're short two there at least now. We also have a couple of other VP's due to reorganization -- rarely does someone get demoted even if they get moved, so we have an extra VP of Sales (reporting to the "senior" one) and an extra one in Finance who is head of auditing (and reports to the VP of Finance).
Each of the VP's reporting to the CEO head a department, and that's usually a budget group responsible vertically for the whole department. They have actual authority to sign contracts and spend money (this is a telling difference in "real" officers in my mind). I'd say that's fairly typical in an old-style production type environment. The above structure manages about 3000 people.
It seems that when you change environments to something like banking and anything heavily oriented around dealing with the public (law, sales) you get a lot of title inflation. I swear a lot of banks here have one clerk and everyone else is a "vice president". But they are more titles for show. Spending $50 might require three counter-signatures for your typical bank VP. Somewhere behind there organization is almost certainly a set of "real" officers much like a typical company heading functional groups.
My personal definition is if you are a 'real' VP you also, unless you are a work-a-holic, lost all free time to do anything technical, and generally regret it.
Assuming you ever could.That's what was interesting about this, its entire focus was on the database technology and very little on managing a group or budget. The only way that would seem to make sense to me is if it's also really the VP of IT, or if this is a company whose entire business is databases.
Or it's a bank.
PS. Pagakia -- apologies if any of the above gives offense, consider it a constructive suggestion that you might want to elaborate a bit on this, is it truly an executive management position or a line manager who might get to actually do things as opposed to direct things. Failure to have budgetary responsibility for example makes this sounds like an over-inflated-title for a DBA.
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Thanks Ferguson for this detailed explanation!
Frank
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Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url] -
We should thank pagakia for posting the position.
But overall, I think its good that a company thinks getting the database correct is a good thing. Too many organizations look to the data base, and the data schema after the fact, only to regret the decision.
The business should drive the data, which should drive the schema, and only then should you think about whether you want pretty bitmaps.
As for the V.P. title, in the US, title inflation is all the rage - yes, you need to have a VP title.
Realistically, this is a Director position.
A real VP position generally pays $150 US$.
But,
What's the business problem you're trying to solve?
What's the business problem you're trying to solve? -
Often smaller corporations will give titles in lieu of money. This works both for the employee in a resume/self esteem kind of way and for the company when dealing with clients.
Call to Help desk:
Very Angry Client: "Your ____ aplication is a piece of crap! It's not doing ______!"
Help Desk: "Please hold on sir and I'll transfer you to the VP of widget production."
Now the VP of Widget production is actually Bill, who is in reality a poorly dressed, hairy eared programmer who shares a cube with you. He is the right man for fixing the the problem and has a decent phone presence. However, since the client calling is actually three levels higher than the poor techie who maintains the application the client feels that he has made some progress because he's now speaking to a VP who can make something happen.
Not that I'm cynical or anything.
I used to work for a company we'll just call Widgets Inc. My wife termed a scheduled client conference call "Widgits Theatre" In my position there I was essentially the entire IT department and had several different titles depending on which client I was dealing with. As such I often sat in on important conference calls and the CEO would "assign" me a particular topic to discuss with the client.
Start-Ups are such fun...
"I met Larry Niven at ConClave 27...AND I fixed his computer. How cool is that?"
(Memoirs of a geek)
"I met Larry Niven at ConClave 27...AND I fixed his computer. How cool is that?"
(Memoirs of a geek) -
Killer thread. Informative AND amusing, cant ask for better!
Andy
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I gotta say, when I read peoples job titles I relly have to wonder what the heck is going on with IT these days, for example:
<so and so posts a highly technical dba q>
title is - "Director of IT"
what the heck!!
even better are those with:
"Operations Manager / BI Engineer / System Architect"
I tell you what, either people have some very strange ideas of what roles and responsibilities are or IT is in the worst recession in years and we all have 10 jobs to fill 🙂
Chris Kempster
Author of "SQL Server 2k for the Oracle DBA"
Chris Kempster
www.chriskempster.com
Author of "SQL Server Backup, Recovery & Troubleshooting"
Author of "SQL Server 2k for the Oracle DBA" -
quote:
<so and so posts a highly technical dba q>title is - "Director of IT"
So what exactly are you suggesting, that a "Director of IT" cannot know anything technical?
quote:
IT is in the worst recession in years and we all have 10 jobs to fillWell, not sure about the former, but I sure feel like I wear WAY too many hats.
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Well lets step back a minute here and talk about IT Directors - if I had an IT director that sniffing around the databases (because they were once a DBA), or its part of the job function, then we have a real problem on our hands wouldnt you think? just think about the role (in business terms) for a minute and relate it back to your business... being a director conjures many thoughts, none of which involves spending time on news groups asking questions about, say, merge replication and why his recursive sql script is under performing or that the cluster "he/she" setup isnt working.. you get my drift 🙂
Chris Kempster
Author of "SQL Server 2k for the Oracle DBA"
Chris Kempster
www.chriskempster.com
Author of "SQL Server Backup, Recovery & Troubleshooting"
Author of "SQL Server 2k for the Oracle DBA" -
The best job title I've ever seen so far, was when I dealt with a banker whose business card stated explicitely in english 'Head of Client Execution'
Frank
--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url] -
quote:
Well lets step back a minute here and talk about IT Directors - if I had an IT director that sniffing around the databases (because they were once a DBA), or its part of the job function, then we have a real problem on our hands wouldnt you think?I guess I find that thought at odds with one of the chief complaints i hear from many non-management types -- "My boss doesn't have a clue what I do, doesn't understand the technology, but insists on making decisions about it".
Would you find it odd to have a CFO writing a technical posting on GAAP or arcane tax law?
Would you find it a problem to have a Sr. Partner in a law firm holding down his end of a highly technical legal panel?
Would you believe a hospital broken if its head of medicine wrote an article for Lancet?
I think the Dilbert pointy headed boss is present in the I.T. industry, but I think you are wrong to assume they are all that exist. I bet there are many "real" Directors out there who participate in various and highly technical ways. In fact, I would expect that a director (as opposed to a VP) may not have management functions that take up their entire day. For example, we have a Director level position in charge of support in our I.T. organization and he has a staff of 4 direct reports (6 other indirect) but no budgetary responsibilities. He's expected to deal with processes and procedures to maintain our network. If he just sat around all day and thought about management and reorganization of the org chart, he would be pretty pointless.
I would not have been surprised if you said that many of them wouldn't be caught dead doing those things. But you seem to imply it would be a bad thing if they did. Would you rather have a CIO who knew as much about databases as you, or one who thought "cluster" was how you arranged the cabinets in the computer room? Personally I've always hated getting orders from someone ignorant of what they speak.
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Just came across this description of a VP
http://home.zylstra.com/comedy/lists/hunting-elephants.html
..somewhere down the second half of the document
Frank
--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url] -
I have noticed that in the last few years companies have been handing out titles instead of cash at evaluation time. They will say things like "We are promoting you to Sr. DBA level 1. So you will have to show use that you can handle this new position before we can provide you with an increase larger then cost of living" I have seen that hit almost an entire I.T. department. At more then one company. You see, an increase from a level 2 to a level 3 is greater then a promotion to another title level 1. Titles instead of cash, you have to love the way the bean counters can play the shell game.
Stacey
SR. DBA !!!
Stacey W. A. Gregerson
Stacey W. A. Gregerson -
As a former bank VP, I am highly offended
. OK, I got over it.Years ago though, after hearing several such comments about the number of VPs in banking, I calculated the % at my bank. If I remember correctly, only about 5% of employees had VP or greater title.
As I understood it, the real reason for many titles in banking is that one needs to be an officer of the corporation in order to have the legal authority to sign certain documents (ie loans). Besides, when I was signing multi-million dollar loan documents on behalf of the bank, I'm sure my clients' attorneys felt better knowing I was signing as a VP, rather than "Loan Salesman". (When they laid me off a few years ago, I decided I didn't want to be a "Loan Salesman" anymore, so I went back to school and became a developer/dba
).Frank: Although I may have wanted to at times, I never executed any of my clients.
Assuming you ever could.
. OK, I got over it
.
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