Tag: career

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.

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.

I wrote a post about Git recently since I’ve found far too many people who didn’t know Git well (or at all) and they seemed hesitant to experiment and learn.

Is this because of being too busy? Do we have so many people who are working in tech where “it’s just a job” and not because they enjoy technology? Or has management in too many places beaten people down to the point they don’t want to try things? Perhaps your coworkers are resistant to change (or lazy) and you don’t want to discuss new ideas with them.

In working with software and databases, I marvel at all the ways in which we can mold and change the system to match the creative ideas we come up with. I’m pleasantly surprised when someone solves the same problem I do, but in a very different way. Even using the same language/tools/frameworks, we can often come up with a variety of solutions that work well. I think we teach each other something when we compare disparate solutions.

When I was learning about computers, we were encouraged to experiment. Those who were willing to try things and learn from them were often more excited by the task, and I think these were often those who went on to successful careers. I’ve found the people who don’t like to experiment or try something new, even when there is no risk, are often limited in both their accomplishments and opportunities.

I don’t expect those who enjoy experimenting with technology to work more than others. I’d prefer that everyone have a balanced life that separates time at work from personal time, and limits the investment in your skills to a reasonable level. Live and enjoy your life outside of technology, but when you do work, make an effort to do your best work, while working to improve what “best” is for you.

Try something new this week. Solve a problem, use a new tool, read about new technology, and write a little code. It’s good for you.

Steve Jones

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

Redgate released the results of their State of Database Landscape recently, and I was part of a webinar where Beca Parker, Ryan Booz, and I discussed the results. As we were talking, one of the things that struck me was the high number of people who had picked skills as being a challenge for their organization. In a single environment, skillset requirements and training were the number one challenge, and it was listed as the number one obstacle to implementing a DevOps approach.

While this industry is full of self-taught individuals who have spent time learning new technologies and tools, it’s somewhat amazing that training continues to be an issue. Many organizations limit their training budgets and time allocated to employees while continuing to expand the number of technologies and platforms they use. This is one reason why I think changing database platforms to avoid licensing costs is unlikely to save you money anytime soon. Retraining staff and developing competence takes time. Perhaps this is also one reason why many companies look to the cloud, thinking that they can reduce the amount of upskilling needed by their staff if the cloud vendor manages the systems.

That might be true, but there is a lot of knowledge is still needed about how the underlying technologies work, especially if employees are to efficiently write code or make configuration changes in the system. The cloud can be more cost-effective, but it can easily be less cost-effective. Knowledgeable employees can make a difference.

I do see plenty of organizations subscribe to online learning, but often I find these courses good for basics, but not necessarily helpful for specific situations and just-in-time knowledge requirements for projects. There more custom training, or at least, group support, is needed to ensure that your staff is learning efficiently. Far too many people can’t handle open-ended training from an online platform and complete more than one course.

Training isn’t enough, as there also needs to be some practical application of new skills in your environment. Practicing katas as a group, coaching each other, and applying skills to actual projects while measuring results is important. It takes some commitment from both employees and organizations to get better. Far too often, I also see staff unmotivated to learn and grow, for a variety of reasons, but that’s a different problem that we have to work to solve together.

The world of technology in business is growing increasingly complex. We find more and more organizations adding technologies, especially new database platforms, and we lack skilled people to work with them. That’s a constant challenge, but one that creates opportunities for you if you find ways to improve yourself.

Steve Jones

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