Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Corporate Career Progression

    I am an advocate of actively managing your career, as well as taking time to think about what is important to you. I say this because most companies where I’ve worked have not had much of a progression path. They might say developer I and developer II, but the requirements and skills needed are often very nebulous and poorly defined. As we approach the end of the year, I ask those of you that want to drive your career forward to think

    Redgate has tried to do better. We had skills maps (reflections), and now we’ve moved beyond this to a progression framework. Ours is based on one from Songkicker. I don’t know what the details of our framework are, but I did read through the framework, which I like.

    If you look at the PDF, I was especially the Skills section, consisting of 7 skills: leadership, mentorship, technical skills, communication, emotional intelligence, delivery, and business knowledge. There are example behaviors after this, with differences between roles. A Software Developer (1) ought to ask for help during a standup (communication), or explain product team goals to a starter (business knowledge). This contrasts with a Software Developer (2) where the same items suggest delivering a presentation (communication) and ask a PM for clarification on a piece of work’s priority (business knowledge).

    While the review of many of these items will be subjective, there seems to be some guidance that helps someone understand the types of skills that they might need to gain or improve if they want to move to a new role. I also like the progression of roles isn’t necessarily into management, which wasn’t the case when I started my career. Often there weren’t senior technical roles that paid what management did.

    While you can’t make your organization change their job titles or career paths, you might plant the bug in HR and management’s ears that having some sort of skills list and examples of what is required for promotion. It can help them better choose the people that will help the company grow, and help you decide how you can grow with it.

    Of course, if management chooses to reward and promote those they like, then you have learned something as well. You can play that game if you choose, or make plans to find a better organization by building the skills some other team might value.

    Steve Jones

  • Merry Christmas 2020

    Merry Christmas today. Happy Holidays to all of you, for whichever holiday you celebrate this time of year.

    It’s been a long, hard year, but I hope you are healthy and happy as we close out 2020. Hopefully next year is more enjoyable for all of us.

    Steve Jones

  • All I Want for Christmas

    I’ve been learning to play All I Want for Christmas this fall, hoping to have some fun with the family during the holiday. Hopefully it’s a festive, fun time of year for many of you out there, despite the challenges of this pandemic year. As I was listening to the words, I thought about what I’d want this year.

    2020 has been disruptive to me, as someone that often travels and meets lots of people. Trying to comply with regulations, as well as stay safe, has meant parts of my job have changed this year. One thing that hasn’t changed is that I still work most of the time in my home office, which is a change that many of you got to experience this year. I wasn’t sure how people would cope, but most of the friends and colleagues I speak with have enjoyed working at home.

    While I do think the world of work for technology people has likely changed, I also suspect that some of you won’t get to keep working at home forever. There are certainly managers that don’t like this format, though I hope this year has opened their eyes to understanding just how productive people can be, even when not visually supervised.

    One of my wishes for Christmas is that we find a way to hold some live events next year, with speakers and attendees getting to be in the same room, network, and shake hands. I know this won’t happen soon, but I’d happily skip other presents if this would come true sometime in 2021.

    I suspect that many people this year have varied wishes for this holiday season, mostly for the health and well-being of their families, but perhaps some other more tangible hopes as well. In any case, I wish you joyous celebrations and smiles with loved ones.

    Steve Jones

  • Datetime3

    I was reading about how 2020 ruined time for an author at The Verge. I agree. I find that March feels like an eternity ago, but so much of the hours and days between then and now have blended into a blur from that I can’t easily discern individual elements. As I cleaned up my speaking CV for 2020, I find myself either unable to differentiate some events from others or feeling that others were years ago.

    Time perception is a funny thing, and as the article notes, we can perceive it in different ways, especially under stress or difficulties. I’ve seen some funny posts, like Pandemic Standard Time, the 211th of March, etc. In fact, this is day 286 of March for me. Mar 11 was the day that most things in my life shut down, though I could see that coming.

    It’s gotten to be so crazy that I want to define a new data type, datetime3, which starts on that date and when I perform a datediff(day, 0, getdate()), I just get the number of days since my personal pandemic started. Maybe this could be a somber Easter Egg in SQL Server, a setting, like two digit year cutoff, that we each can set to remind us of the date when the world changed for us, and a new one began.

    I do think that with medical technology leaping forward that we can find some semblance of our old world, where we get together and share knowledge, smiles, and laughs. However, I also think all of us, and our organizations, will be somewhat changed by the events of 2020.

    I hope that begins in 2021.

    Steve Jones

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