Why become a DBA?
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I'd go with developer
The thing you should consider is what comes beyond this or your present position. What does the carreer ladder look like on both sides? Talk to the senior dba and system architect and get a sense of whose job you'd eventually want.
The other thing to consider is that taking the dba position does not permanently commit you to that path. Having been a dba would futher round out you development experience.
Lastly, to what extent can you mold this new position? It seems like Adam above has a good slice of both worlds, if you can go that route then more power to you.
Shane
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Now the 'meat and potatoes' ... Production DBA ...
You have:
- cell phone (personal)
- blackberry for email (and another cell phone builtin for work)
- pager possibly (backup system in case blackberry dies, different service provider as well for the pager)
- laptop, extra batteries, configured for 10 base T or wireless lan
- servers (yes plural) at home in your server room (On Windows - SQL Server, Sybase, Oracle, maybe even a Linux or Solaris box too)
- home phone numbers and personal cell numbers of the operations folks, backup admin, systems admins and probably every important application owner (yup those on high 'muckety mucks'). Oh, don't forget your manager, his manager, director and possibly the VP or CIO of IT.
- you may have an initial on call rotation. The reality is that you are on call 24x7. It's just that somebody else gets the first call every 3 out of 4 weeks instead of you. But when all is sauid and done, you're usually in on just about every after hours issue,whether you just direct a more junior DBA on how to fix something or you perform th task yourself.
- you probably don't vacation out of town much because you generally have to be within 45 minutes or less of a 'connection' just in case ...
- pressure and responsibility are things you deal with all the time. Most developers and managers usually buckle (scream, wail, whine and yell possibly) in most of the situations that you deal with daily in a calm a logical manner.
I've been at it 22+ years and love it (yes, even with 24x7 on call almost continually for the last 10 years !). Think of it as the upper 2%. If a company has an IT department of 100 there are probable 2 DBAs. One Production and one Development. Oh, I almost forgot, those 2 DBAs are probably the most highly compensated employees in the IT area short of multi-project managers and directors. It's not for everyone, you have to love responsibility, pressure, learning and most importantly change.
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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Oh, don't forget your manager, his manager, director and possibly the VP or CIO of IT.
You actually have that many layers. For me it's my manger, the VP for IT, the CFO and then the owners.
And when the one of the owners, the CFO, the Sr Acct are sitting in your managers office when you can't recover the Acctg Oracle DB for 4 days (cascaded HW & SW failures) -- makes you real nervous about yoour future job prospects with the company.
But it still is satisfying
when when you solve a problem rapidly.
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Jim P.A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.
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Thank you all for your inights and suggestions!! I knew this was the place to ask this question.
My wife agreed with many of you about the change in managment and staff as I am very happy where I am currently. But career growth and future opporuntities are important as well.
I still have more questions of the management, so we'll see...
I wasn't born stupid - I had to study.
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Don't Bother Asking.
Sorry, just had to post this.
PS Farrell, I love you closer
I wasn't born Stupid, I had to study.
It's been posted on my wall for awhile now.
KlK
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