Any database administrators here?

[Thaddeus Smith]

I'm starting to hit an age where I think specialization would be best for my long term career stability - curious to hear from DBA's about current market trends, pitfalls to avoid, etc.

[twk123]

This is actually a great field to get into. In general, "Big Data" is the hot topic for Human Resources with everything from online bot scrapers to troll LinkedIn accounts for prospective employees to monitoring workforce productivity etc. I went to the HR Tech conference in Vegas last year and literally every seminar was about data. The group health insurance and Human Resource world always needs tech people to manage their databases and to be able to facilitate communication between Online Enrollment and Human Resource Information (HRIS) vendors, Brokers and Insurance Carriers. Most of the data is HIPAA compliant so you will need to know the proper security protocols etc for EDI file transfers and the such. Luckily due to security worries and the fact hackers are starting to target this industry, outsourcing/offshoring is frowned on more and more as we are dealing with SSN and addresses etc. Anyway, these people are always in demand with pretty good pay starting at 50K and going up from there with experience with companies like ADP, Ceridian, Workday etc. Caesars Palace actually offered a buddy of mine over 100K to manage their own online HRIS system a few years ago. There is a lot of worry in the Health Insurance industry about government takeover and such but there will always be a demand for the tech people. I used to work for a local Broker and we would joke that even when all the producers disappear our department will be the only one left in the building.

[Paducah Home Theater]

I kind of am.  I was the DBA for most web stuff at the company where my day job is since 2004 or so.  Unfortunately regulations in the banking industry has forced roles to be more specialized recently like in the past year, so by law developers can't do production database or server stuff, which sucks, so I can only develop in SQL nowadays.  Before that I did all the web database stuff for Accuride (wheel manufacturer) and for a consulting company that handled the databases for all the parameters and graphs of semiconductor chips for Stellex and Filtronic, and partially for Raytheon, Tyco, and Texas Instruments.  I've been to many SQL Pass, SQL Skills, and SQL Intersection conferences. 

 

Current big trends within the SQL Server community I would say is Microsoft Azure (cloud) and Dynamics (CRM) integration. I can't comment on Oracle and whatnot. 

 

If you were interested in it, certification is the key.  Everybody nowadays acts like they're an SQL expert once they figure out some joins and indexes.  Certification is starting to be way more popular in terms of landing a good job than it used to be.  Same thing with CRM.  Easy to get a real good Dynamics job with certification, without it, not so much. Way too many people are doing fairly hardcore stored procedures and whatnot nowadays so that doesn't set you apart.  Performance tuning and coaching others is where a good DBA really shines nowadays.  You gotta know how the database server thinks and how to leverage it to save the company money, not just how to get the data that you want, anybody can do that. 

 

#1 tip I can give you is to try to follow Kimberly Tripp. 

http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/kimberly/

 

 

[pbphoto]

There will always be the need for somebody who knows traditional relational databases - just like we still need good technicians who can repair vintage SS / Tube audio gear.  But the days of Oracle and Microsoft charging HUGE license fees for their relational databases are coming to an end.  The future belongs to big data and NOSQL DBs IMHO.  Cloud economics and hardware architectures are dictating this.  my .02

[Thaddeus Smith]

great input, thanks guys!