Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • T-SQL Tuesday #184–Mentoring

    This month’s T-SQL Tuesday blog party is hosted by Deborah Melkin, and it’s a good one that asks us where we are making the world better. The topic is mentorship and sponsorship, which is great. We all ought to pay it forward or pay it back, depending on how lucky we are. I believe strongly in this and am glad to see the topic posted.

    I still manage the T-SQL Tuesday list, and I’m always looking for hosts. I have a few scheduled for 2025, but I can use more. If you’re interested in hosting, hit me up at one of these places:

    The Mentoring Experiment

    Andy Warren and I ran The Mentoring Experiment a few times in the past before life got too hard and we decided to pause. I wrote about mentoring as well, and didn’t publish a lot on the experiment as most of the conversations were private.

    I’m somewhat sorry we didn’t continue this, but it proved to be a little overwhelming at that time in our lives.

    My Mentoring Experiences

    I’ve had a few mentors in my life, and while some I’m not comfortable sharing, there are a few that stand out.

    In high school, I had a mentor who was a Navy Pilot. He was a client of my Mom’s and she asked him to give me rides to and from karate, where he was also a student. On our rides, he shared some advice, some thoughts on life, while taking an interest in me. A few things stand out, one of which I still think about today: before I send an email, how would I feel if this were made public? This keeps me from writing too emotionally.

    For the last 20+ years, Andy Warren and I have talked most weeks of the year. We miss a few when we’re on vacation, or I’m traveling, but he has been a great mentor to me, helping me think through life’s challenges. I hope I’ve done the same for him.

    Giving Back

    I think part of what I should do is try and make the world better. Part of that is my trying to get a variety of people to write at SQL Server Central or host here. I’ve reached out through my network to find women or minorities that would participate in our data community, and give them a voice. I’ve been less successful than I would have liked, but I have had a little success.

    I’ve also convinced a few people to speak. I usually look for people at events that are engaged, ask interesting questions, or just have good conversations with me. I’ve found it takes months, but if I encourage them, I’ve gotten some of them to write or speak for free to share their knowledge and grow their own skills. There are a couple successes who many of you likely know their name and a few more that tried it and gave up.

    I think the more you encourage people to engage in life, the more they (and you) get out of it.

    I also try to do this as a coach, getting them to grow and learn more than just the sport. I think it’s worked out well as many kids keep in touch over the years.

    I think many of you can do the same thing. Help others grow and find their own success, with encouragement, support, and a friendly ear.

  • The Job Outlook for Database Professionals

    This is a strange time for many technology professionals and their employment. It seems many organizations have open positions and are struggling to fill those slots with qualified candidates (one look at this). At the same time, many other organizations have followed the large technology firms (FAANG, MSFT) and laid off large numbers of their staff in the last year.

    At the same time, with the hype and rapid growth of GenAI systems, we have companies that are looking to machines to fill some of their labor needs. Salesforce noted that they did not expect to hire more software engineers in 2025 as their plan was to use AI tech to help them write enough code. They’ve seen productivity gains with AI tech, so they aren’t adding more developers. They still need human developers, just not more of them.

    While thinking about the labor market, I ran across this report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US, which tries to project jobs across many different industries in the future. They typically are careful and conservative, and while they show growth in the need for database administrators and database architects (and software developers) they also admit they can’t quite tell what impact GenAI tech will have on the labor market. They do think there will be an impact, but for now they have the need for data professionals growing faster than average.

    Why is it hard to get an IT job? I know plenty of people looking for work that have struggled to find a position that suits them. I think there are a few things at work here. First, many companies have been burned in the past with unqualified candidates. We know hiring is hard, and we will make mistakes with some hires. With the focus on cloud, new technologies, DevOps, and more, companies want to hire skilled people who can hit the ground running.  I also think the supply of workers is high and companies are more choosy about who they hire.

    Lots of companies are also investing in their own workforces, upskilling and re-skilling them in new technology. It’s often easier to train someone whose work ethic, soft skills, and other factors are known than hire someone new who might or might not be a good cultural fit. I know that I often see budgets for conferences and classes are low, but there are plenty of companies still sending people to classes, conferences, or providing opportunities to learn.

    If you want a new job, or you’re struggling to find one, I can’t stress enough the importance of working on your own skills and showing prospective employers that you are investing in yourself. Take stock of your skills and work on projects, experiments, build things, blog about them, and show companies that you have the skills they need.

    Don’t forget your soft skills as well if you’re investing in yourself. Learn to communicate well, both written and verbal, as that can often set you apart from other candidates. As someone that has interviewed others, those skills sometimes are more impactful than your technical ones.

    Invest in yourself now, and you’ll be ready for the challenges you face in the future.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

    Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

  • No End to Programmers

    There’s an interesting piece at O’Reilly this week titled The End of Programming as We Know It. That’s actually a good title, but it doesn’t mean the end to programmers, developers, software engineers, of whatever people call themselves.

    The piece looks back at history, starting with physically connecting circuits to program and moving to switch flippers, cards, compiled languages, and on to the web and mobile systems. Each of this brought more and more programmers into the industry because there’s no end to the software needs of the world and it’s hard to write good code.

    I like that the web was seen as the end of programming as anyone could easily build a minimal application to share things. Even frameworks like WordPress let novices create applications that do all sorts of useful things. However, we still need programmers. Look around at how many WordPress consultants are willing to help you.

    That’s because there’s a difference between configuring something off a shelf (or from a digital store) and actually having a working application for your situation. There’s no end to what people want to build, and really, they need someone to build it for them. Or at least modify, improve, or re-implement the proof of concept they created.

    The world of AI LLMs, and chat-oriented programming, is no different. Anyone can ask for an app and get a reasonable prototype. However, I don’t think this means less programmers. While more people will build more PoCs or prototypes, that also means more people will need a professional to clean up their system and make it work, scale, and perform well. And probably help secure it better.

    Programmers (developers, software engineers, etc.) will scale themselves with AI tech, as they’ll get the AI to do some scaffolding and initial work that they clean up. I’m sure the very best will build RAG AI systems that generate the type of code they want with a little training and input. I could see millions of AI assistants that help write basis code outlines, write tests, check for standards and code smells, and help the human shift left, catching small, simple, silly mistakes.

    I think we’ll have more people producing software in the future, but I also think that those who know their industry well will be in more demand. They’ll recognize issues in AI-generated code, they’ll guide AIs better, and they’ll communicate more clearly with AIs. They’ll get their pick of the best jobs, and they might be better compensated.

    Things they likely do today with their fellow humans.

    Steve Jones

  • Can You Become a More Productive Engineer?

    The short answer is of course, most of us can learn and improve our skills to become better developers, engineers, DBAs, etc. While we might not be able to become the 10x engineer that many aspire to be, we can certainly become a better employee inside of an organization.

    There’s a piece on becoming a more effective engineer, which is actually titled know how your org works. It a piece from an engineer that started with a tweet: The text was:You can either complain and pontificate on Twitter on how the tech industry *should* ideally work, or you can learn how your org *really* works and what’s rewarded, and optimize for that. Or quit and find another job. This might sound cynical – but it’s what it is.

    That sounds a little harsh, but the reality of how your org works or is structured or interacts is a reality. We all have hindsight to look back and wish someone (including us) had written code better. We might be sure if we could change one thing, or add/remove someone else, or make some other change, then things would be better. We might feel that there is a simple solution. Those things might be true, but they aren’t the reality of the situation.

    Learning to be more effective an engineer in your situation does involve learning to work within the reality of your position in your organization. You need to learn to work well with others, to understand what needs to be completed from the perspective of you and your group, and what the organization places importance on getting done. That last one might not be what the organization expresses, as there can be a big disconnect between words and actions.

    You also need to learn how to deal with uncertainty. Often when we build applications, we don’t have all the information, and we can’t get it. We can’t necessarily count on everyone we work with to have the same shared understanding or work at the same pace. We have to learn what levels of trust we can extend, work within ambiguity and be prepared to change our plans in response to how things work.

    In other words, most organizations have a lot of chaos and to become a better engineer you must learn to navigate the chaos and still get the things done that others notice.

    The piece has a section that soft skills are hard skills, which is true. When I see people who are very effective engineers, they can be the brilliant, 10x engineer, but that’s rare. Usually it’s the engineers that have strong soft skills in both working with others and understanding the power hierarchy in the organization that succeed.

    Of course, some organizations are full of bureaucracy, favoritism, and disfunction that it’s hard for anyone to become effective. It’s amazing these places continue to exist, but they do. I’ve been in a few and I’ve left as soon as possible, which is my advice to you. Don’t work in a dysfunctional environment. If you can avoid it. If you can’t, then work to leave.

    Effectiveness is part being better at coding (or tuning or admin or whatever), but it’s also part learning to work well with the rest of the organization.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

    Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.