Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Hiring Guitarists

    This editorial was originally published on July 1, 2013. It is being re-run as Steve is on vacation.

    Hiring good people is hard, though in some cases it might not matter as much as others. If I am hiring entry level developers or DBAs, I have a lot of candidates, I’m not investing a lot, and I shouldn’t be too concerned if I have to let someone go and find a new employee. Given the fact that the people are often unproven in this case by definition (they’re junior levels), I should be prepared as a manager to make more mistakes at this level.

    However at the senior level, hiring needs to be done more carefully. The high costs, the limited number of candidates, the responsibilities I give senior people, along with the trust I need to bestow upon them means that I can’t afford to make the same percentage of mistakes at the senior level. Most importantly, I don’t want to hire expert beginners instead of experts at this level.

    I ran across a post on a way to hire senior developers that I thought was very interesting. In particular, I was struck by the analogy of hiring a guitar player. For the most part, I’d agree that if I wanted an experienced guitar player, I’d want the expert, not the expert beginner. If for no other reason than I don’t want to argue with an employee that does things my way, including making the same mistakes I’d make, and then explaining to me this is how I had specified things to be. I want a senior people to warn me, and influence me to do better.

    I’m not sure how I’d devise a similar level of test for a senior level DBA, though I do like the idea of giving them some scenario or simulation that has flaws or problems and seeing if they’d correct them, point them out, or leave them in place as they moved on to “play” the scenario. I’m sure there’s a way to do this, and a balance between how to evaluate the responses.

    Ultimately I want senior people to fix things, make them better, and provide a smooth path to increase quality. I want them to point out flaws, and warn me about issues. If I insist on making poor choices, I want their support, but if they can influence me to do better, I’d prefer they did. That’s one mark of a senior person.

    Steve Jones

     

  • Accelerating Your Career

    This post was originally published on Apr 23, 2013. It is being re-run as Steve is on vacation.

    I ran across an article on ways to accelerate your career and for the most part I think these are good ideas and suggestions. Networking, finding a mentor, and more will help you no matter what business or field you are working. Some of the advice is geared towards those people looking to climb the corporate ladder and move into management, which is not necessarily what many of us want. If that’s the case, ignore those items. There was one item, however, that I thought was particularly interesting for data professionals.

    The seventh item on the list notes that you should spend 10-15% of your time working on a project that’s outside of the scope of your job or team. That might sound crazy, and even dangerous, but it’s a good idea if your boss isn’t opposed to it. Having knowledge about the way your business works, the way they use data, or solve a problem, could be valuable in your existing job. You might notice a pattern or way in which you could improve either your job or someone else’s. Over time, helping in a variety of departments builds friendships, increases your networking, and might show your boss you deserve a raise.

    Many of us end up working with data as a widget. The job of a developer or DBA is writing code or managing data, and sometimes don’t often think much about the actual industry in which we are working. Gaining deeper knowledge of the way your particular business works means you can better understand why you are asked to solve a particular problem. That knowledge can lead to a better solution. It might also make your job just a little more interesting.

    For the typical US worker, that’s 4-6 hours a week. For the IT person, that might be a little more time, but I think it’s worth the investment. I wouldn’t be overly driven in this area, and if I were working on extra projects at work, I’d eliminate (or cut down) on the time I was spending learning new technologies. Life requires balance, and if you tackle something new in one area, make sure you know what you can give up.

  • T-SQL Tuesday #93–Interviewing Patterns

    tsqltuesdayIt’s time for T-SQL Tuesday, and this is a good topic. Not too close to T-SQL, but certainly something many people are interested in.

    Kendra Little hosts this month, and her topic is interviewing patterns and anti-patterns. Things that are good, or things that might appear good, but are bad. Be a candidate or an interviewer.

    You can read more about T-SQL Tuesday at tsqltuesday.com.

    Pattern: Groups

    One of the things that I think makes a good pattern for interviews is a group. It’s rare that any of us actually works alone or with just one person. Even if our group is 1 or 2 people, we often interact with others in different ways.

    Those other people depend on our knowledge and skill. Why not use them in an interview.

    I’ve had quite a few interviews like this, but they all are similar. Get the candidate in a conference room and bring in multiple people to ask questions. Usually it’s a round robin with everyone taking turns asking questions. Ideally, the same questions to all candidates from the same people. The discussions can veer into slightly different directions, but ideally in similar veins for everyone being considered.

    I’ve been in the candidate seat with as few as two (one isn’t a group) and as many as 12 or 13 others. This can be stressful, but if everyone is probing, then the candidate needs to interact and communicate with those that they’ll actually work with. In my mind, a good test.

    Anti-pattern: Confrontation

    I love the old Monty Python Silly Interview skit. I’ve been tempted to do something like this, but never have. It’s not fair to the candidate, and I’m not sure it tests anything well.

    I had a couple rough interviews in the past. One was where a VP of a small company was excited and interested after having talked with me over the phone and then in his office for 30-45 minutes. He then brought me to his consulting sysadmin/programmer, who peppered me with scenarios and questions. However, this gentlemen argued about every answer, and implied that I was answering incorrectly. In many cases I knew I wasn’t and said so, however the confrontation continued. In some cases, I just admitted I wasn’t sure.

    Later, I came to be friends with the guy, but never too close. He tended to rub me wrong most of the time because he was closed, cold, and argumentative. It was a good job, and we got along, but if he had been my boss (I was interviewing to be his), I wouldn’t have accepted.

    The other one was similar. I had a good phone interview with a technical person and then went in to meet the manager. He was brusk and short with me, constantly letting me know he was in charge, he didn’t think much of my credentials, and I should be expecting to work hard. With that offer was a pay cut I couldn’t accept, but not sure I would have in any case. His manner made me think that every day would have include some sort of insult, browbeating, or other unnecessary action.

    I think we can make an attempt to evaluate candidates without being jerks.

    Pattern: Flexibility

    The last pattern I like is the idea of quizzing people in a flexible manner. I’ve never liked schoolteachers or managers implying that most of our work is extremely set and susceptible to deadlines without flexibility. Or that we work a certain way. The real world isn’t like that.

    BTW, if you have hard deadlines, like shows or events, your stuff better be done well in advance, not hours before.

    When I’ve had good interviews, or gotten a good handle on a candidate’s skills, it’s from adapting to them. Some people like to show something on a computer. Some will whiteboard, some like to discuss the question in detail and ask their own questions. I’m OK in all those cases. When I work with the person, I get a better feel for how they think, how they solve problems, and what catches their eye.

    I can also evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and decide where they might fit in our team.

    Evaluating someone is hard enough without being rigid about what we do. Expecting everyone to take a test well, or be able to answer any question orally, or any other specific way of interaction is asking to miss out on some potential good candidates, as well as potentially hiring someone that is good at interviewing, but not working.

  • Learning through Puzzles

    A few years ago I ran across the Advent of Code challenge. It’s an interesting set of puzzles that you are asked to solve. Most are at a scale that wouldn’t be practical to solve manually. Once you solve a puzzle, there is usually a second part that’s unlocked (you must put in the solution) and then your progress is tracked on the site. A new puzzle is released every day leading up to Christmas, but you can skip around and solve puzzles as you like after that. I had fun in 2016 working through puzzles in T-SQL, PoSh, and Python. I need to go back and work the 2017 items.

    Recently I was trying to brush up on some Python skills and ran across the PythonHow challenge. Before going on to rework some exercises and coursework, I decided to see what I remembered. The  puzzles are easy, but one leads you to the next. In other words, you start with pythonhow.com/start, when you solve the puzzle, you get a letter, say “r” (that’s not right). You change the URL to pythonhow.com/r/ and you get the next challenge.

    That’s a neat way to get build a flow. I could imagine that as a way of teaching someone new skills. Maybe you want to help someone learn R (currently our Wednesday Questions of the Day) or window functions. Give them a problem, and once they solve it, the answer leads them to the next puzzle. A puzzle game, but one that paces you according to your understanding of a topic.

    I wonder how many people might like learning like this, or perhaps might be frustrated when they can’t solve something. Maybe this is a nice addition to something like a Stairway Series, giving readers a chance to practice skills. Do you think this is a good idea? Not a super hard, challenge the experts, but maybe a way to help those that are beginners or intermediate SQL people learn to code better.

    Maybe some of you would like to build some small puzzles in T-SQL that we could link together? This might be a fun way to set up a T-SQL Advent calendar one year. Feel free to submit some to me.

    Steve Jones

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