Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Continuous Learning

    It seems there’s quite a dichotomy in the technology workforce. On one hand I hear about the Great Resignation where many employees are leaving their jobs because of RTO (return to office) mandates or some other dissatisfaction with their job. On the other, I’ve seen quite a few people who were laid off and are struggling to find new positions. On the third hand, there is no shortage of companies who report they are struggling to find and hire talented people for some positions.

    I don’t quite know what to think, but I do know that employment seems to be harder to come by. If you are looking for a job, I believe you need your own sustainable learning plan. If your organization can’t find qualified talented staff, then the organization definitely needs a continuous learning plan.

    I saw a piece on creating a continuous learning culture, which seems more suited for managers than technology workers, but there are a few good pieces of advice. First, set some goals. I write about this often, and I’ve seen others recommend this as well. Think about where you could improve your skills, and where you see demand for skills, and then start working backward on a plan to gain those skills. Think about where you want to be in 6 months or a year and build a plan to get there.

    Another good piece of advice is to learn within your flow of work, which often means spending a little more time deepening or broadening your skills in an area where you are already working. If you’re writing a query, analyze the plan and reads and see if you could tune it to run more efficiently. Read about those skills and practice them, which deepens your skills. If you don’t know much about query tuning, then broaden your experience and learn about a new operator, new index, new hint, and experiment. Then you have a wider view of what possibilities there are in query tuning.

    More importantly, build the habit of curiosity and experimentation, which is what will help you drive continuous learning throughout your day. It’s good to look at new things, but don’t forget to sharpen your existing skills, practice being better at the work you already do, and find a balance that ensures you are growing while still meeting your other commitments, both at work and away from work.

    There’s an old joke that if you train people they might leave, but if you don’t train them, they’ll stay. For organizations struggling with talent, embrace some investment in current employees, at least those who have potential. Grow them and you might find that the person you’ve been struggling to hire is already working for you. They just needed a little boost.

    Steve Jones

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

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

  • Grinding Away: Brent Ozar

    Brent Ozar is a very successful DBA/consultant/speaker/business owner in the data platform space. Many of you have likely seen him speak, read his blog, used his sp_Blitz script, or taken one of his classes. He’s achieved a lot and I know many people that would like to get to the place where he is in life. Most of us would love to teach a few classes, do office hours from wherever we are, and custom order a sports car for fun.

    One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about watching Brent move through life is his life quest. You can read this, but I’d recommend scrolling to the bottom (Level 1) and then going up through history. These are various items of achievement, some adventures, some things he had to work through.

    I’ve known Brent a long time. I remember when he started speaking, when his blog started to grow, and I have watched him put in a lot of hard work.

    He’s been grinding for most of his life and only recently slowed down. Before that, he spent a lot of time trying to improve his skills. He worked lots of hours to learn about SQL Server. He got his employer to send him to the SQL Server Ranger class to become a certified SQL Server Master and he studied hard to achieve that. Many of his goals around building his business or speaking to large crowds required investment of time and money to learn how to accomplish the goal.

    And he’s told many of you how to do the things he’s done. He shares lots of thoughts on what has worked for him, some things that didn’t, and given you a blueprint to become a better DBA, consultant, speaker or anything else.

    You just have to do it (and want to do it).

    If you want a good example, one of his early posts is on coding for his class reunion, a volunteer effort. Time spent forcing himself to learn.

  • Doing a Little Research

    I’ve been very pleased with the direction of SSMS the last few years. As it’s been separated from SQL Server releases and gets updated more often, I think the changes from v17 though v20 have been improvements. There are still issues, but it’s been better. Now we finally have SSMS moving to a modern shell with the v21 preview and I’m excited to see how this changes the future of our tooling.

    However, the PM for SSMS, Erin Stellato, posted a note on LinkedIn recently asking why people don’t read documentation. She also asks what you want to see in 21, so respond if you think there are holes in the SSMS docs. I think this post came about because of many responses that came from people who clearly hadn’t read some documentation.

    I find far too often people struggling with different concepts, some of which I know a bit about and some I don’t. However, for those that I don’t, I can often figure out something about it quickly. A combination of Google, following links in those results, and increasingly, asking CoPilot/Some-AI  a question often helps me solve a problem by giving me direction and knowledge. I still have work to do, but it’s a start.

    In fact, that’s how I solved a lot of the questions on SQL Server Central in the past. I’d read a question in the forums, I’d research a bit, set up an experiment, test something, and then post an answer. And at times, then getting told my solution didn’t work and figuring something else out or correcting my answer since I’d missed a bit of the context.

    These days, I see lots of people struggling and I don’t quite understand why. It seems the art of scoping a problem, doing some research, some experiments, and coming up with a solution relatively quickly isn’t common, but more uncommon. Lots of friends who have colleagues/direct reports say there are plenty of others that don’t have these skills.

    I’m curious for those of you willing to share, how do you go about doing some research when something doesn’t work? When you get asked to do something you don’t know how to do, or asked a question you can’t answer, what is your process? Pick a specific example if you can and let us know how you self-educate.

    If you struggle to do this, or you post online and expect someone else to help you, I’d encourage you to think about how you can become more self-sufficient and teach yourself, using the resources you have. Your employer will appreciate it and it will help further your career opportunities.

    Steve Jones

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

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

  • Grinding Away: Iris Classon

    Iris Classon is a developer and Microsoft MVP. She has had a lot of success across the last decade plus. This is her second career, deciding in 2011 to leave her profession as a registered clinical dietician to learn to program. Here’s an excerpt of an interview:

    “Well, the first few days sucked. I mean—yes, you might want to beep that out. Because our teachers are doing, counting, talking about binaries, and I had forgotten all the math. They’re talking about binary numbers and doing all the calculations. They’re talking about hardware as well, which I didn’t know anything about. I know now, but not then.

    I was so frustrated. On the second day, I was like, “I want to go home.” I was kind of upset and stuff, so my teacher drove me home and we had a long chat, and he said, “Iris, come back. We kind of need a personality like that. You just come back. Give it the rest of the week and you’ll see.”

    On the third day, when I came back—I did come back—we started programming. We did our first little console application, and I just realized I just got it. I would turn around and look at my classmates. Some of them just seemed confused and I was like, “What is the problem? I mean, this is logic.”

    For the first time in my life, I understood what was written.”

    Her first year of programming is documented on her site, and it’s a neat read to me. The important thing is to remember she documented this daily during that year. It’s summarized now, but she was grinding away.

    What I like about this

    This is a story I think shows practically how to improve yourself and get better at something new. I have remembered this story as I tried to learn to coach over the last ten years, and as I continue to work on trying to improve my skills.

    This is also in tech, and it gives you a way to look at yourself and try to improve your skills to find a better position, or maybe the position you really want.

    What I don’t like about this

    Not everyone can take time off to improve for a year, though this is something most of you could do across 3-4 years.

    I also don’t want to make it seem like anyone can do this. Everyone has certain genetic gifts, and they are drawn to certain things. Iris clearly is drawn to very logical work and has a gift for programming. Your experience, raw talent, and understanding might not be as good.

    You can get better, but you walk your path and you have to remember that. Reading other stories can sometimes feel like I can’t do that. You won’t likely do the same thing, but you can improve yourself a lot of you grind away.