Career Choice: Database Administrator

[ssampier]

After much soul-searching I have finally decided on a career. I decided I want to be a Database Administrator. I have been interested in computers and IT for many years now. I even studied Information Technology briefly in college, eventually making it my minor. I earned my BS in Sociology in May of 2004.

I am currently working as Internet Tech Support for a rural telcom. One of my many duties is to maintain a small 6,000 record Access database.

Does anyone here know a DBA or performs DBA functions for their organization? I am most interested in Microsoft’s SQL Server, but I am open to learning open-source databases, too. Let me know the best way to approach this career choice and what opportunities and challenges I may have ahead of me.

 

[der_kluge]

I'm not a DBA, and have no desire to be one, but I've worked with many, many DBAs in my career.

First, the good news. DBAs can make good money. If you get a chance to become an Oracle DBA, you will always have a job, and opportunities will always be available. Good Teradata DBAs can easily make $120k per year. It's not uncommon for the really good ones with lots of certifications to make that much.

Which leads me to the first point - you want to get certified. Getting certified for whichever RDBMS you use is a really good idea. You'll stand a much better chance at landing good jobs if you're certified.

Be aware that a DBA job is not always an easy one, and it's usually always a thankless one. DBAs get paged at 3 o'clock in the morning when the database crashes, and sometimes these crashes can be very difficult to solve. Often a DBA will find themselves on long, very painful conference calls with upper management and clients who wonder why their applications aren't working.

Also, the career path of a DBA is a dead-end one. As a DBA, you can expect to be a DBA, and then maybe a senior DBA. If you're lucky, maybe you could even become a manager over a team of DBAs, but don't bet on that. And that's about it.

I've never heard of anyone being an Access DBA. Most programmers take care of those functions themselves. There are SQL Server DBAs. In fact I know one. That's a perfectly viable career choice.

A still better career choice is the career path I chose - systems analysis or data modeling. Here, you work on the front end of a project, and you work on new projects all the time. Data analysts gather requirements and build brand new databases. Once they are installed, they might make a few changes here or there, but they rarely if ever get paged at 3 in the morning, and most don't carry pagers. Data analysts aren't as common as DBAs, but they tend to get more respect in an organization, and the career path is a little more broad.

So, I hope that gives you something to think about. Being a DBA is a great career choice, and if you love it - great. It's not for everyone.

 

[ssampier]

Good to know. I will carefully analyze your advice and post more questions later.

Thanks!

 

[Bront]

Access doesn't have much support for DBAs in the service. You want to learn Oracle AND SQL, at which point you'll likely be set once you can build your resume.

Keep in mind, the life of the DBA is often one of constant phone calls, unreasonable deadlines, and management that doesn't know what you realy need to do your job.

A much better option, is once you get the DBA skills, pick up some other programming, or learn applications that deal with the database, like Peoplesoft or some such. That is where a DBA can make money, supporting Database Interface programs.

 

[Justin]

I'm a UNIX System Administrator, not a DBA, but I've worked with DBAs. and I've taken Oracle 9i System Administration courses and worked with MySQL, PostgreSQL and Informix. Let me say that it's a tough specialty, but very rewarding if you truly enjoy the esoterica involved in tuning databases. It would also be good to gain experience with multiple OSS and commercial databases even if you want to specialize in just one.

I don't remember where I read it, but there's a very apropos quote. Something to the effect of "Nobody knows what a DBA does, but everyone needs one because they can't afford two."

 

[IronWolf]

I am not a DBA though I play one at work. The DBA responsibilities at my work get split between me and one of the programmers at work - I am actually a sysadmin. I know there is some money to made out there as a talented DBA if one desires that direction.

My biggest words of advice is make sure you do it becuase you enjoy it. If you have fun doing it and maintaining critical databases sounds fun then go for it. There are just too many people doing it because they see the $$$ for those types of jobs (i.e. Oracle DBAs) and try to collect the paycheck. Those DBAs aren't much fun to work with. The ones that do it because they enjoy there job are great to work with on a daily basis.

Oh, and in regards to the system analyst type role. I think even with that you would be well served by having served some time in the trenches learning the hard way what works and what doesn't would be wise. It gives you a path of progression without possibly ending up as a DBA only, forever type role.

Good luck!

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

I've just joined my company's IT QA team as a upgrade tester. I am currently working with one of our DBA's (we have half a dozen) on testing Oracle 10G to see if an upgrade will cause any problems.

To me DBA looks to be a "Mother Hen" job where you spend half of your time protecting the system from developers , and half your time dealing with crisis’s , and another half looking at what's needed down the line. :\

If that's your cup of tea then more power to you.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

It is easy to be an average DBA.

It is very hard to be a good one.

I have only met one excellent one in 10+ years in IT.

 

[nerfherder]

To me DBA looks to be a "Mother Hen" job where you spend half of your time protecting the system from developers , and half your time dealing with crisis’s , and another half looking at what's needed down the line. :\

Yes, keeping developers in line is like herding cats...

I've been an Oracle DBA (as well as UNIX sysadm, c/sh/4gl programmer, configuration manager and a bunch of other development roles) for a few years. My current role is more like what der_kluge calls a data analyst, and I get to design new databases, tune them, advise developers on the best use of SQL, design interfaces between systems, etc, etc. Having several years "in the trenches" is definitely useful.

I started out as an Ingres DBA by being the person on the project most interested in taking on the role. No-one said "right we need a DBA" - I just read the manuals and performed the tasks required. Once I'd done that for a while, the letters "DBA" appeared on my CV

I took a bit of a detour into straight coding for a software house, then worked for another software house migrating an Oracle application to Ingres, saw the way the market was going and persuaded my boss to let me help out the Oracle DBAs. After I'd done that for a while, the word "Oracle" appeared before "DBA" on my CV...

So, in my case, I got to be a DBA by seeking out suitable work in the organisation I was in and taking that work on. Another way to progress into the DBA role that I have seen is to shadow a DBA during the development phase of a project so that he can then move onto the next project while you keep things ticking over in support.

Cheers,
Liam

 

[ssampier]

I'm not a DBA, and have no desire to be one, but I've worked with many, many DBAs in my career.

First, the good news. DBAs can make good money. If you get a chance to become an Oracle DBA, you will always have a job, and opportunities will always be available. Good Teradata DBAs can easily make $120k per year. It's not uncommon for the really good ones with lots of certifications to make that much.

No problem. As long as I enjoy what I do and I’m making 40-50k or less with excellent health benefits, I would be happy.

Which leads me to the first point - you want to get certified. Getting certified for whichever RDBMS you use is a really good idea. You'll stand a much better chance at landing good jobs if you're certified.

Good point. I considered get certified as MCDBA. I think I should spend more time in trenches first.

Be aware that a DBA job is not always an easy one, and it's usually always a thankless one. DBAs get paged at 3 o'clock in the morning when the database crashes, and sometimes these crashes can be very difficult to solve. Often a DBA will find themselves on long, very painful conference calls with upper management and clients who wonder why their applications aren't working.

I have heard the same thing about network administrator. Being woke up at 3 am is never fun, but nothing is perfect. You have make sacrifices in everything in life. My father was home all the time, but he made about $30 k a year as a coal miner; a job he absolutely hated.

Also, the career path of a DBA is a dead-end one. As a DBA, you can expect to be a DBA, and then maybe a senior DBA. If you're lucky, maybe you could even become a manager over a team of DBAs, but don't bet on that. And that's about it.

I've never heard of anyone being an Access DBA. Most programmers take care of those functions themselves. There are SQL Server DBAs. In fact I know one. That's a perfectly viable career choice.

Hmmm, never heard of that. If worst comes to worst, doing what I like in a “dead-end” job wouldn’t be so bad.

As for the Access, it’s just one job responsibility I currently have. I figured I need desktop database knowledge before moving on to server databases, such as Microsoft SQL and Oracle.

A still better career choice is the career path I chose - systems analysis or data modeling. Here, you work on the front end of a project, and you work on new projects all the time. Data analysts gather requirements and build brand new databases. Once they are installed, they might make a few changes here or there, but they rarely if ever get paged at 3 in the morning, and most don't carry pagers. Data analysts aren't as common as
DBAs, but they tend to get more respect in an organization, and the career path is a little more broad.

Systems Analysis I considered but I thought it was an “Enterprise Developer” profession where you need 10+ years experience. As for Data Analyst that sounds really interesting.

So, I hope that gives you something to think about. Being a DBA is a great career choice, and if you love it - great. It's not for everyone.

Just like everything else, like doctor and lawyer. What would you say the most common personality traits? I’m pretty introverted. Ideally, I would like working by myself or a small team half the day, and working with larger teams or putting out proverbially fires the other half.

Second is my degree a detriment to my career choice? In about five years I would like to attend graduate school for either Master of Business Administration with emphasis in Information Systems or Master of Information Systems.

Thanks for the advice!