Tag: career

This editorial was originally published on February 15, 2013. It is being republished as Steve is out of the office.

Most of us have had an interview or two in our lives. We’ve had to assemble a resume or CV, create cover letters, and practice answering questions in preparation for an interview. In all of these things, we are looking for ways to market our past work and present it in the best light as evidence that we will make a good employee in our next position.

We each have our own experiences, successes, and failures, but we aren’t bound by what’s happened in our career so far. We have the ability to shape our brand for the future by making changes in the way we approach our career from this day forward. I have a talk and blog on this subject, but I certainly don’t have all the answers. I’m always looking for more ideas and suggestions to help people and wanted to ask for your ideas this week.

What would impress you most about a job candidate?

Is there something that you’ve seen or heard about in the past that impressed you? If a candidate had written a book, or created some software, would that make you look upon them favorably? I know that a candidate needs to present themselves well in an interview and be able to write SQL, or manage an instance, but when you are examining dozens of resumes, is there something that stands out?

Take a moment and tell us what has impressed you in the past, and whether it was an indicator of a good employee or not.

Steve Jones

This editorial was originally published on Mar 12, 2008. It is being re-run as Steve is on holiday.

It’s getting close to March Madness, but this editorial has nothing to do with basketball. I saw a career newsletter recently that answered a question someone had about negotiating non-compete agreements (NCA) and non-disclosure agreements (NDA). The basic answer was that you might want to negotiate reasonable limits to these agreements to protect yourself.

I’m under a few NDAs, one as an MVP, one as part of Red Gate, and I still have a NCA as part of the sale of this site. I’ve also signed some in the past, but I’ve been careful to read them and negotiate the terms to be more fair, at least in my mind what was fair to me and the company. Often the original agreements I’ve seen are heavily in favor of the company and should be changed.

The MVP one with Microsoft actually seemed fair to me and mostly covered releasing information that we get as MVPs in advance of Microsoft’s disclosure. So I always ask before I repeat something I’ve gotten through their channels.

I don’t think that NDAs or even NCAs are that commonplace as a condition of regular employment, but you should be careful and read them carefully. The exceptions might be if you’re a consultant (often an NCA will be given to you) or you work in a company that’s going some type of research or invention, including software. In these cases, I think you might see a standard one.

However you feel about them, usually they’re required as a condition of employment in those cases, however you don’t necessarily have to accept them as is. I highly encourage you to read them and ask for changes that you think make sense. Usually this involves limiting the distance, time, or scope of the agreement. I definitely advise you to limit time frames to no more than one year for most time limits, a reasonable distance limitation (50-100 miles), and scope out specific companies for which you cannot work (for example, current customers or even only those you have contact with).

One thing I’d also mention is that don’t look at these agreements as ironclad. I know consultants that have gone to work for current customers of their employers by negotiating the transition. Often the contractor doesn’t want to anger its customer, so it may let an employee go as a gesture of goodwill. Of course you probably have to work for the company, not be your own contractor.

Just keep in mind one thing if you ever want to get around the NCA or NDA. You need to ask and negotiate again, which just might get you what you want. If I’ve learned one thing in negotiating anything, it’s that you can’t get it if you don’t ask.

Steve Jones

I’ve been working in technology for over 25 years. As I look forward in time, I suspect I have less time left in a data professional career than I’ve already experienced. That’s fine, and while I don’t plan on retiring anytime soon, I know I likely will retire before another 25 years pass.

While it might not be as much of an issue for me, I do think it’s important to think about where your career may go. I ran across this post on the future of IT Pros and thought, “this sounds familiar.” A friend I knew used to manage a 20,000+ Exchange system for a large company. In 2000, he was sure that the advances in email technology from Microsoft would mean that he wouldn’t have a job in five years. Within two he had moved on to another industry altogether, trying to establish a new career before he was made obsolete.

Certainly if he had planned to still manage a 20,000 mailbox Exchange system the same way today, he’d be out of a job. However, if he evolved to either learn new skills along with Exchange, or added O365 administration, he might still be employed, and earning a very good salary in technology. Likely more than he makes now.

I think about this regularly as I see the Microsoft stack world changing and the emergence of new database technologies like NoSQL, data lakes, and Azure SQL Databases/Azure Data Warehouses. Those technologies certainly might mean that less DBAs are needed to actually install, back up, manage, and care for on-premise database instances. However, I still think there are plenty of opportunities for the Database Administrator. High Availability and Disaster Recovery technologies are more in demand than ever, and there is a complexity in Availability Groups that ensures there are still good jobs. Increasing security and auditing requirements require humans, usually with knowledge about querying and understanding the data more than setting up the technology.

The bar may be raising in terms of skills needed from database IT pros, but I still see lots of opportunity. Continue to work on your career, learn more, adapt, work hard, and you’ll have a job for a long time. Try to ride out the next few years on the same skills you’ve used for the last decade, and it’s entirely possible you’ll find yourself replaced by either a piece of software or another human that’s willing to learn a few new tricks.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcast

Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.5MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Mevio .

I noticed that my company, Red Gate Software, was looking for a support engineer in our CA office awhile back. It’s a good job, and while the salary is lower than that which experienced SQL Server professionals might make elsewhere, there are some good benefits, not the least of which are a generous vacation allowance and the chance to get a sabbatical. At first, I suggested looking at recent graduates from local colleges for candidates, as well as junior people at user groups or SQL Saturdays, but then I had another thought.

Working as a support engineer can be an interesting job, seeing lots of different types of problems with software. It can also be less stressful since you work on lots of small issues without looming,  deadlines. With great benefits, it might be the kind of job that an older technology worker would want. Especially if this were a part time position. Experienced, semi-retired professionals might really enjoy this job. I know this is something that might intrigue me in 15 or 20 years.

QA certainly needs more quality workers, and with the sporadic nature of the job, I could see organizations benefiting from using flexible workers that might not even want or need a full time job. Perhaps having a larger group of people available on demand, as many customer support centers use, might be a good way to take advantage of skilled workers that are looking for extra money.

We have lots of positions in technology that require lots of experience, but aren’t necessarily full time engagements in many companies. I would expect that much like Remote DBA services, we will see more and more limited engagements in the future, either part time or contract based. Hopefully many of us will find both fulfillment and excitement throughout our careers, perhaps slowing down over time, but still being engaged and excited in technology.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcast

Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.8MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Mevio .