Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Hiring Guitarists

    guitarHiring 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

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

  • Programming

    programmingTechnology is here to stay, and those of us working in this business probably realize more than most people how dependent and integrated our lives are with technology. Even in countries that don’t have the infrastructure or economies of first world nations are using more and more technology in their lives. Mobile technology seems to be at the forefront of much of what we do, but I’d argue that data is fast becoming more important than the software itself.

    The one thing I’m becoming more convinced of is that this article is right: programming is a core skill. It doesn’t matter if you’re a developer building mobile apps, or a contractor scheduling workers, or a homemaker that wants to balance a budget. While there is software that might help, it seems many people are quick to open a spreadsheet, add some data, and start building formulas. These days the jokes about people not understanding how to program a timer on a DVR are fading quickly as more and more non technical people are using technology to make their lives easier, or perhaps, more complex, as they manipulate data and software.

    I suspect the fundamental skill of logically analyzing a problem and coming up with a set of steps to solve it is becoming more important all the time. In many businesses the ability of workers to think for themselves and handle a variety of situations is more desirable than the ability to follow orders. Even in industries where workers need to follow instructions, those instructions might be coming from computers more and more often. There will be a huge gap between workers that can think for themselves, perform data manipulation and make business decisions and those who cannot. That gap might take the form of compensation differences, opportunities, or something else, but in many industries, those that can build their own programs, whether in code or processes they follow, will advance faster and further.

    Not everyone will want to be a computer developer, but most everyone can benefit from understanding how calculations and instructions can be chained together to build a process or workflow. With newer generations becoming familiar and comfortable with technology from early ages, my vote would be that we should add programming to the three Rs for future generations.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

  • Achieve Better Performance

    One of the hottest topics at most every SQL Server event I attend is performance. The sessions that talk about improving performance through various means are well attended, and that tells me a few things. One is this is an important topic, and two, people need to learn more about it.

    This past week I noticed a lot of performance related topics appearing in blogs and headlines. I’m not sure why there were so many this week, but I think it does deserve pointing out that this is a good week to beef up your skills in this area. I saw a little bit of something for everyone, no matter what your job.

    Database administrators, who often deal with the end product from developers and can make limited changes, should make sure they understand statistics, which can clue them into problems in a number of situations. You ought to be able to troubleshoot various issues, like blocking or tempdb issues. For those dealing with merge replication issues, you ought to ensure you understand how to deal with conflicts and resolve them. No matter who you are, you need to understand the impact of IO on your server, and that means ensuring you can measure the load. Measuring CPU can be tricky, but there’s an interesting idea from the SQL Server team this week.

    The developers, who can make changes early in the process of software development, really should learn to write better SQL. That means studying the various ways people solve problems and practicing using some of them. Do you know the issues with Scalar UDFs? Do you understand temporary objects? Can you PIVOT data? There are so many writings on T-SQL that you can’t keep up, but you should be getting better over time if you write T-SQL code in your job.Developers also should understand the basics of indexing, and deliver a few basic indexes along with their software. That’s the least you can do.

    This week we started to see various blogs on SQL Server 2014, especially the Hekaton feature. While I’m sure the next version of SQL Server will perform better and speed up some of your workloads, it can’t cover from fundamental mistakes, at least not completely. Do your career, and your current and future employers a favor and work on your performance skills this week.

  • Give

    volunteerThere’s a lot more to life than just working to support yourself. Sometimes you need to do just that, but often we have more flexibility to enjoy and appreciate the world around us. We can take joy and pleasure in the experiences we have, the people we encounter, and the accomplishments we achieve. However there’s another part of life that I think is important for everyone, and that’s giving of yourself to help others.

    I believe that almost everyone should volunteer their time or resources and give back to society. We should all work to make this a better world for everyone. Whether this is through a church, a non-profit, your local community or some other way, we are all better off for the efforts. I also believe this isn’t something you do constantly throughout your life, though if please feel free to do so. Some of us will volunteer when we are young, some when we retire. The important thing is that when we are able to do so, we act.

    Giving of yourself helps others, and it can provide you with positive feelings. It can also be good for your career. This piece talks a bit about the traits of those people that give, and it seems they often find their own personal success grows. This is because the way they view themselves, their time, and their accomplishments, changes when they help others. Volunteering can reduce stress, and may help you enjoy your job more. That last item might be the most important reason of all.

    This is something you can learn to do, by making time to help others at work, or in your life. Please be sure to balance this with the rest of your life, but you might find that taking a little of your free time to help others ends up improving the quality of your life, well beyond the price you pay in accomplishing less yourself. However please volunteer because you want to, not because you want to look good or add an item to your resume. Give because you want to give.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.