Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Are IT Certifications Still Relevant?

    I’ve got a few certifications and quite a few more that have expired or aren’t relevant. Does anyone think Windows NT 4.0 or SQL Server 6.5 matter? If you need help in those areas, ask someone else. Unless you have a crazy budget with a willingness to pay a ridiculous hourly rate.

    Kamil Nowinski had a recent video discussing why IT certifications are still relevant. He had ten reasons, and if you want to watch the entire show, you’ll hear his reasons and some rationale why he thinks they matter. It’s a good set of reasons: keeping up with tech, practicing learning, demonstrating a commitment to some technology, finding a community of certified colleagues, and more.

    In some sense, many of these are tightly coupled, but still worth pointing out. I think for smart, driven, ambitious people, certification is something that you can take advantage of to add to the learning you’re likely already doing: sharpening your saw. That’s an analogy to the craftsman that keeps his/her/their tools ready to go. For us in technology, this is usually our mental acuity with software (or perhaps typing).

    For those who aren’t motivated, getting a certification just to add letters after your name devalues the certification for sure. We saw a lot of paper-CNEs (Novell), paper-MCSEs (Microsoft), and paper-CNAs (Cisco) in the 90s. Poor interviewing techniques combined with a glut of certified-but-not capable staffers soured many people on certifications. For good reasons.

    However, when you interview someone with a certification, or if you want to get one, pursuing a certification using Kamil’s list means you are driving your knowledge forward in a focused, organized fashion. The certification isn’t the goal, but a step on the way to becoming a more capable technical professional.

    I got a couple of certifications in the last few years, and I felt they helped me grow and learn. I didn’t always use all the skills directly, but I learned things that have helped me in my job and I didn’t regret the time spent. I might work on another one in 2024, but time is always in short supply, and I’ve got other things to learn.

    Even if I’m not trying to get certified, I continue to learn for many of Kamil’s reasons, just without an examination during my journey.

    Steve Jones

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

  • Action Over Knowledge

    I saw a quote recently that resonated with me. It’s not something I’ve often struggled with, but I have at times. Here’s the quote:

    “Life rewards action, not intelligence. Many brilliant people talk themselves out of getting started, and being smart doesn’t help very much without the courage to act. You can’t win if you’re not in the game.” – @JamesClear

    Part of my goals in life are to help others and motivate them to engage in life and drive themselves forward. I have tried to motivate my children, I work with kids I coach to grow and change, and I (think) write about this often here. I want you to take charge of your career and life and drive it forward in the way that works for you.

    However, you have to work at things. The quote above notes that it’s not how smart you are, but having success in life comes from action. From doing something. From making efforts. The last part is the most important, if you don’t engage and become part of your game, your life, you can’t win or achieve your goals.

    As Ferris Bueller said, life can move pretty and you can miss it if you’re not paying attention. As I get older, that means more to me. Life slips by, days, weeks, months, even years seem to fly by. Especially after the pandemic, where I see someone and realize it hasn’t been a year or two since I’ve seen them but four years.

    You don’t have to be extremely driven and type A. I think I might be a little too driven at times, living in chaos, but I met someone recently who spent more than 5 years trying to transform a company. This individual worked their job, spent nights and weekends trying to learn more about their business, and drove themselves and others well beyond what I’d consider a balance in life. They were working well over 60 hours a week for years, as were some employees. I don’t think that’s a great way to live, and whether it’s work, hobbies, or something else, forgetting to balance the various parts of your life isn’t good.

    At the same time, inaction, not trying to grow, learn, practice, or even attempt something new in any part of your life isn’t good either.

    Work on your career and skills but balance that with the time you need away from work. Invest in your education to change careers if you like, but don’t plan on working what is essentially two jobs to become a way of life. At least not for too many years. Enjoy your hobbies, but remember there is family at home that deserves and needs your time as well. Find ways to engage in life, but in a way that respects all the commitments to work, family, friends, faith, hobbies, and yourself. Especially don’t forget about taking care of yourself.

    Effort is often more important than the short-term results. Just being engaged and in the game gives you a chance of success, but more, it allows you to enjoy the ride. Just do so in a balanced way.

    Steve Jones

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

  • When is it time for a new job?

    I subscribe to quite a few newsletters, and one of them is for job hunters. I have a great job, maybe the best job for me, but I like to keep in touch with what’s going on because I, well, I have job insecurity and worry about being without a job. I think this is leftover from childhood. I also want to know how to help others in finding their dream job.

    Recently there was a question asking when it was time for a new job How can you tell (for yourself) when you should be seeking new opportunities? It might not be easy to recognize for many of you. Perhaps you don’t realize there are other opportunities you might appreciate because you’re comfortable. Perhaps you’re the frog in water that’s being heated so slowly that you don’t realize how poor your current situation is for your health.

    Earlier in my career I was constantly looking for new opportunities. Whether that was within my current employer or outside, I was looking every month for other jobs, asking people what they liked about their position or employer, and regularly looking to increase my salary. I was working hard to drive my career forward in my 20s, both with opportunities to grow and more compensation.

    In my 30s, I had children. They became important, and while I was aware of opportunities, I wasn’t actively looking to move unless I found myself in a very poor situation. Even then, I tolerated a couple of very poor managers for months because I had no options, little energy to look, and felt resigned at times. I worked on my career, but lightly. At some point, I somewhat fell into owning a business (with partners) with SQL Server Central. I had good and bad jobs, high and low stress, but I didn’t do enough to stop and think about my current situation at various points in time.

    In my 40s, I found a great employer in Redgate, a company run the way I’d want to run my own company. I’ve been there 16 years, and I don’t ever want to look for a job. I still evaluate how I feel, and I appreciate the ability to log my feelings periodically in Thymometrics, which helps me decide if I’m satisfied. This is a service that lets you rate your position in many ways. I question myself, regularly, as I fill out the form and I often look at the historical trends. I measure those graphs against how I feel that day and decide if I need to make any changes in how I approach my job.

    I’m older now, approaching retirement though not anytime soon. I don’t want to look for any more jobs, and I love the one I have. Thymometrics verifies this. My job has changed over the years, evolving to better help me support Redgate’s direction. Fortunately, I’ve enjoyed those changes. However, I do always keep an eye on my friends’ jobs and am aware of other opportunities. While I don’t expect to move, I’m always lightly looking. It pays to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

    I still touch my resume a few times a year and try to keep it up to date. I recommend you do the same.

    Steve Jones

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

  • The Journey to Change

    I assume most of you reading this work with SQL Server, at least for some of your workday. I know there are plenty of you who also support Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or some other database platform. The results in our (Redgate’s) State of Database Landscape report showed that many organizations, indeed most, have more than one database platform in production.

    This was also a theme in our Data Community Summit and Redgate Summit keynotes, where Ryan and Grant discussed their journey to learn a new platform (PostgreSQL). One, a requirement (Ryan) for a new job, and another, an opportunity (Grant) as the company focus shifted. I assume some of you out there have had similar experiences either moving towards, or away from, SQL Server.

    I ran across a breaking up with SQL Server post from David Alcock, noting that his job had evolved from SQL Server to AWS, GCP, PostgreSQL, Python, and more. The author got tired of database work, had an opportunity to learn about new areas, and got excited while doing so. That’s similar to my career, where I did a lot of networking and administration work early in my career but saw an opportunity in databases (and financial rewards), so I worked to change. I enjoyed the new tech and built a great career. I wish David good luck on his journey.

    For many of us, there is regular tension between gaining deeper knowledge and more expertise or broadening the variety of skills we have. We have to decide where we spend our time as time is a limited resource. Hopefully, we realize that improving our skills in some way is a good use of our time and are doing something. Anything is better than nothing.

    At the same time, we need to find some balance and realize there are other demands on our time outside of work. Family, friends, hobbies, faith, all of these need some time for a healthy, balanced life. We might need to lean on our current skills and expertise at times, not investing in ourselves, but it shouldn’t be our long-term strategy. As I’ve said in a few presentations, evaluate your growth every quarter. You might take a few quarters off from learning but don’t take off a year. Or not multiple years. Invest in your skills regularly.

    There are often rewards for improving our skills. These might be a raise, better choice of projects, better employment, or maybe even the spark to build your own business. It takes work, but I’ve not often found the time I spent was wasted. Even if I learn skills I don’t use or enjoy, I learn something about myself that helps me better direct my future career.

    Steve Jones

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