Tag: career

This editorial was originally released on Oct 14, 2012. It is being republished as Steve is out of the office.

When you are in a job interview, it’s almost inevitable that near the end the interviewer will ask you what questions you have. As noted in this post, a large number of people have no questions. It’s certainly possible that the interview covered all the questions you would want to have answered, but do you have a list of questions before the interview starts?

You should. I think it’s important that you ask questions in an interview, especially questions that are important to you. Many times each of us wants a job, needs to get a job, and don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize our chances. However taking a job that’s a bad fit, or has some aspect that will bother you every day is a bad idea. You spend a lot of time at work and a poor work environment can make your life miserable.

In the piece, the person makes a good point that your questions reflect your priorities and can result in an unfavorable impression. I think you can ask about topics like telecommuting, but do so in a way that shows you are interested and excited about the job. I’ve noted long commutes and the time they take in an interview, asking if I can better use that time to solve problems by working at home a day or two. The way you bring topics up can matter, so make sure that you word your questions in a way that shows you are interested in doing a good job.

I do think that asking questions which show your enthusiasm or interest in the position are good questions to ask. However you should think about those questions before you go to the interview and determine if what impression they make. Write down your questions, and if they are answered during the interview, mark them off and ask any remaining questions at the end.

The interview is your best chance to determine if the position is a good fit for you and the company, so take advantage of that.

Steve Jones

There was a post recently asking how to train a junior DBA. What tasks do you give them, how to get them productive, etc. The responses were interesting, but I was struck by one note from a person that is a junior DBA. This person mentioned a few things that have helped them get better at their job, some of which I hadn’t thought about before.

Since I try to teach people about SQL Server in writing, in presentations, and longer formats, I decided this might make a good poll question. If you spend a few minutes thinking about how you’ve improved your skills at your job, let us know what works best for you.

What things can others do to help you learn more about your job?

Are there specific things that have actually worked better for you? Perhaps you prefer to learn alone, but even then, what works well for you that builds skills. Is there a format or style of presentation that reaches you?

I’m a big believer in multiple voices and multiple ways to teach people. This is one reason we sometimes have 2-3 articles on the same topic from different authors. Each will reach different people, and speak to them in different ways. I think the format (text, video, live, etc. ) also has some impact on what helps different people learn. Let us know today what works best for you.

Steve Jones

Is there such a thing as a 10x programmer? It’s an interesting idea, and one that is discussed from a few perspectives in this Q&A. There’s some talk about how to define “x” as well as the idea that the environment and project might make a big difference in productivity. Certainly the baseline of the staff measured makes a difference. If most of your programmers aren’t very productive, then a more talented developer might easily outperform the average by a factor of 10. Depending on how you measure productivity.

I wonder, though, is there a 10x DBA or database developer? What would that look like? If we examined the effectiveness of a DBA managing systems, I have seen DBAs that managed 10x the absolute number of databases and instances. Working inefficiently, connecting the individual systems to apply updates or check statuses could easily make you ten times less efficient then the DBA making use of scripting and the ability to apply changes across many systems, not to mention managing them for issues.

In terms of database development, if we have some programmers that can produce code using 10x less resources than others, I’d consider that a 10x programmer. Given the state of questions I see asked on SQLServerCentral and other sites, it definitely seems that there are plenty of developers being paid to produce poorly written T-SQL code. We don’t have great definitions of how we can measure productivity, but there is plenty of code posted that can be dramatically optimized. It’s the rare week that I don’t see someone noting they’ve reduced the runtime of some code from hours to minutes. Isn’t that 10x more productive?

Ultimately one of the amazing things about software is that we aren’t bound to a particular structure once it’s created and used. We can quickly, and easily, change the way the code is built so that it works differently, does more, runs efficiently, or really anything we want. Of course, testing that the code produces the desired effects and deploying that to different environments in a way that minimally impacts clients is a challenge, but a challenge many in our industry work on constantly, seeking improvement.

I think there are definitely 10x programmers, but that really depends on your situation and how you utilize the people working for you.

Steve Jones