I saw this on one of the syndicated SQL Server Central blogs: Job Description of a DBA. This is mostly a list of things, but it covers a lot of the general types of things that many of us expect a DBA to do. However, my question is whether you think this is a good description for a job opening. Would you ask someone to fill this list of things?
Maybe a better question is whether you could use this to evaluate candidates, and how would you go about asking questions or gauging a fit based on this. Perhaps you should ask yourself how you evaluate others and if there is a good way to rate them against a list of daily tasks.
To be fair, I know most job descriptions often include many “desires” along with “needs.” That can be maddening to many job seekers, as they don’t feel qualified. What I’ve found when building descriptions is that a wider variety of people provide input for what they would like in an employee than just the hiring manager. The hiring manager might weigh these items differently and accept someone who doesn’t know replication well, even though replication is used if the candidate is skilled at query tuning. I would say expert, but how do you judge that? Most of us would probably settle for someone who can improve queries even just a little bit.
When I interview people, I want to know a few things. One is can I get along with them, as well as the rest of the team. This isn’t to discount technical skills, but we need to be a team. If we can’t get along, and maybe more importantly, disagree civilly, it’s hard to work together. We do need to bond, though that doesn’t need to be over a drink or sporting event. However, we might need to share a meal, so I hope we can enjoy a conversation for an hour.
The other thing is that I need to see some effort and desire to succeed. I don’t need someone to be an expert, but I do need them to show an interest in helping our customers, whoever they are. Part of that is trying; part of that is getting to the end result. I see far too many people that don’t try to solve problems or care that there is someone waiting on a solution. I also see too many people unwilling to try and improve the environment, whether that’s a codebase or server configuration. They might be good at their jobs, but I like to associate with people who want to make the world better. People who think forward, who ask questions, who under-promise and over-deliver.
I think the job description I linked above is a good one, fairly comprehensive in scope, but lacking in lots of details. The devil is often in the details, especially in how hard someone might work to complete these tasks, and if they would work to do so to meet their commitments, but also do so in a quality manner. And, of course, under pressure. Most of us know that things break, and when the thing is a database, a good DBA is invaluable in restoring service under pressure.
Steve Jones
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