What's Your Job?
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Comments posted to this topic are about the item What's Your Job?
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Excellent idea, Steve! I love to help anyone who is seeking a new position/career move. So, I'll give you some of my details.
I work in state government, in the southwestern US. I work in one of the largest state departments in my state. Last I knew we had about 200 people in IT (both operations and software development). My title is Application Developer 3, although I prefer the term Senior Software Engineer. Yep, I'm a developer. Please don't hold that against me. 😉 I'll give what I've been working on and a little of what the IT department has been working on.
I've been working on an ASP.NET Core .NET 6 web app to handle some complicated transactions for the state pharmacy. This involves using a third-party tool from Telerik for jQuery.
When working with databases we tend to design a database first, rather than use Entity Framework's Code First approach. This approach is different than many software developers' approach. However, it's easy to scaffold an existing database into model classes and the DbContext class using EF Core. For some reason, the DBAs are not involved in designing new databases. I presume they spend time tuning the database, after we design them.
State government is notorious for being extremely conservative, in software engineering approaches, adopting modern technologies, etc. We have been very slow to adopt putting anything into the Cloud. At the beginning of the Pandemic there was a big rush to get some new apps into Azure, but those stalled and failed. I'm not entirely sure why, as I think it either had something to do with network issues or security/firewall. Both of these are outside my wheelhouse. However, I think we'd be better off today if that had succeeded. We are now in a huge attempt to catch up by moving some of our apps into the Cloud.
Along those lines several SQL Server databases have been moved into Azure. I've been involved in one of those migrations, but many more have been moved into Azure. However, all these migrations have been lift-and-shift migrations of our on-prem SQL Server instances into Azure VMs.
The same is true concerning migrating some of our apps into the Cloud. All those we've moved into the Cloud have been lift-and-shift. None of our apps are "cloud ready" or "native cloud apps".
About 5 years ago I was made the Team Foundation Server (TFS) Administrator, when the previous TFS admin left. We have a really old TFS instance, which has been out of support for many years. Therefore, we're working on migrating our source code out of our on-prem TFS, into GitHub (GH). Due to structural differences between how projects and repositories in TFS are structured and the same in GH, this process is taking a LOT LONGER than I know it could have taken. I advocated using GH Import functionality, which would have greatly sped this up, however management had concerns so two of us are busy manually migrating repos one repo at a time out of TFS into GH using two tools: git-tfs and Git-Filter-Repo.
I hope that someone in these forums will find what I've shared here helpful.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
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@steve-2 Jones,
What would be cool is if you posted some of the job descriptions that your friends and clients are posting and well as a bit of candid talk about what the job really requires. When people post "kitchen sink" job descriptions, you can expect to get generic candidates that think they know stuff simply because they don't know what they don't know.
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
Jeff, you make a good point about generic job descriptions not being too useful. However, sometimes it's hard to write a more descriptive job posting when you lack the necessary skills to do the job. For example, yesterday my boss, a coworker and I spent the day interviewing some candidates for a Web application position we've got open. We're looking for someone whose got experience working in modern Web technologies. Quite different for us, because as I wrote in my earlier response to this thread, state jobs tend to not involve anything current, but rather work with older technologies. In preparation for the interview my boss was discussing React as a skill. I have limited experience with React and no experience with either Angular or Vue. I started taking a Pluralsight course on React, then discovered I needed some other skills, so I've started learning those other skills, etc. Anyway, I didn't feel qualified to ask any questions on React. I said I would defer to my coworker, who is a more experienced web developer.
Yesterday we had interviews with the candidates. Looking over their resumes I saw they both had experience with Angular, and one of the candidates also had experience with Vue. But neither of them had React experience. After the interviews, the three of us discussed our impressions, etc. My boss admitted that React, specifically, wasn't necessary. I learned that my coworker hasn't any experience with React, Angular, or Vue. In fact, he'd never heard of React or Vue until yesterday. (I'm guessing he's heard of Angular, because it is so popular.) It became clear to me that none of us had any experience with React, Angular, or Vue. If we had tried to ask any question on any of those three technologies, the candidates could have been snowing us with B.S. and we'd never know. I think the state department I work for is trying to bring in someone who knows one of these skills, so they can teach the rest of us.
But bottom line, how do you write good, detailed job descriptions of the job you're trying to fill, when you don't know enough of the skill you're interviewing for, to ask coherent questions?
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
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I wear both a DBA hat and a senior software engineer hat although the DBA hat gets a lot more wear. I work for a blood lab in New England and our software engineering team is quite small. We’re in the process of moving our data center from our current location to a new location as dictated by our parent organization so what I’m doing now is not my normal set of tasks.
Normally, I would be writing T-SQL scripts to add new lab tests to the database and modifying stored procedures and functions to support those tests on our reports. Also working with the lab and their vendors to spin up newer versions of SQL Server (our vendors can be VERY SLOW to support new versions preferring to run on versions that are out of support vs testing and validating on newer versions of SQL Server). I will give specs to IT for them to configure a VM and create service accounts for the new server and then I’ll install and configure it. I’m responsible for installing and updating SQL Server monitoring software and checking for indications that issues are developing. If I see that, I need to deal with them when they cause user issues. So, add query tuning to my task list when there isn’t a backlog of tests to add to production. Occasionally, I’ll be tasked with small changes to some of our C# desktop applications.
Currently, most of my time is spent planning the move to the new data center with a new domain. Specifying new server VMs and doublechecking that they are configured as requested. Selecting the version of SQL Server to install in the new data center, installing and configuring the SQL Servers. Dealing with installation and configuration issues that crop up in the new data center / domain. Moving SQL Server logins and AD users and groups logins to the new servers. The AD logins require writing scripts to write scripts to create copies of the current AD logins in the new domain with different user and domain names. I’d suggest, if you haven’t played with writing T-SQL to write T-SQL that you give it a try. It can be very handy. I also look at our current configuration and look for things we’ve wanted to change before but never got around to or couldn’t do because of being on an older version of SQL Server. We have testing time so we can always roll back what doesn’t work the way we expect. Restoring backups from the old domain to the new domain (thank you PowerShell and dbatools!) Supporting developers moving applications to the new environment with any SQL issues they find.
There’s more (there’s always more) but this will serve as an overview.
- Rod at work wrote:
But bottom line, how do you write good, detailed job descriptions of the job you're trying to fill, when you don't know enough of the skill you're interviewing for, to ask coherent questions?
This is something that you can hire someone to do. They can also do the interview with you present. It's totally worth it to get a good hire.
I used to do interviews for some small companies in the local area. I did it pro-bono just to help them out and to help the local area grow. I recently wrote a very strange job description for a local company for what I'd call a "Master DBA that was also a master at writing code and performance tuning. I did that one as my last such act because they were people that I knew and had worked for before.
One of my favorite paying jobs came about as a result of a one line ad that simply stated "Basically, we want someone that can look at SQL, figure out what's wrong, and fix it".
And, no... I don't write job descriptions or do pro-bono work anyone. My current job keeps me hopping.
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
I work for a global IT organization that is all-in on Azure (mostly Azure SQL Database with some Cosmos). All of our application development and maintenance is outsourced. Although my list of tasks is enormous, the most important are these: I find database errors and performance issues (in development, test, and production environments) and report them (via Azure DevOps work items) to the appropriate teams, along with recommended solutions. I then validate their fixes (which could include changes to LINQ application code, stored procedures [minor changes or complete refactoring], or index modifications) to ensure they actually fix the problems in a test environment, and then again in production. Lots of SQL and TSQL performance tuning. I support at least eight different product development groups, which have widely varying levels of SQL skills all the way from "how do you do a join" to "sure, I'll completely rewrite this 4000 line stored procedure". I monitor performance and capacity issues for our databases and elastic pools, scaling them and expanding storage capacity as needed.
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Shifting gears a bit, I got an email at 2:33PM my time about a job posting in linked in... here's the link...
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3625596996/
I took a look at it at about 3:30PM and there were already well over 200 applicants. As of a couple of minutes ago, that number grew to 320...
The job description is pretty detailed and I won't post it here. Go have a look.
I wonder how many of the 320 applicants even come close to the requirements in the "Essential Duties and Responsibilities" section.
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
I work as a SQL DBA , Oracle Apex Administrator. Mainly involved in supportings Databases, doing deployments from time to time. Reviewing code for developers, sometimes helping Developers with some of their tasks. I am also looking for some freelancing or extra work in Azure SQL as I recently did a certification, If anyone knows of any Azure projects I can work on please message me directly.
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Dang, Jeff, that Senior DBA remote position with Harbor Freight is very tempting, as I am EXTREMELY interested in finding a remote position. However, in my own estimation I don't think I am up to functioning at a senior DBA level. I envy you guys and gals who can work at that level. I wish you the best of luck and remember me if you get hired.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
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I envy people that can work at that level, as well. 😛 While I still work hard, I no longer want to work THAT hard. 😀
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)
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