Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Boost Your Career with #SQLNewBlogger

    A few years ago Ed Leighton-Dick started the #SQLNewBlogger challenge. He asked people to start writing about their career and building their own brand. I thought it was a great idea and I’ve been continuing the challenge on my own blog, writing posts and also including a short note on the effort for me to produce posts.

    It’s early 2022, and if you haven’t been blogging, and you want to grow your career, start writing. Set up a blog and produce some posts. You will build communication skills, you will showcase your knowledge, and provide potential employers with some due diligence about why you would be a good addition to their team.

    Think about tagging these posts with #SQLNewBlogger as well. You’ll promote these alongside other people’s posts and perhaps will find yourself a new, better position this year.

  • Passed DP-900–A Review

    This is part of a series on my preparation for the DP-900 exam. This is the Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals, part of a number of certification paths. You can read various posts I’ve created as part of this learning experience.

    I passed the DP-900 exam. I did well, though I likely over-prepared.

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    I have typically been a good test taker, but I’m nervous about them, especially when they cost money. I did well on most finals in college, but was always very nervous. For most of these exams, even though my employers have paid, I’ve been worried.

    This post looks back at the things I did, building on my prep post.

    Final Prep

    Since this was for work, and they’d pay for it, and because I wanted to review things, I got access to the Official Microsoft Practice Test. This is US$99 for 30 days or a bit more for 60 days.

    Side note: I once worked for an education company in the early 2000s that partnered with MeasureUp and I had access to these tests.

    I purchased this about a week before I thought I’d take the test. I’d been lightly going through the courses and reading docs on and off for a few weeks, usually about an hour every few days. I took the first practice test, which simulates the exam (49 questions, timed) and got a 650. Not good enough.

    I went back through some of the self-paced training quicker, and then I dug into books online in a more intense fashion, for about an hour a day for a few days. I then retook the practice test and got to a 780. Passing, but not great.

    I consistently struggled with CosmosDB and Synapse, and a few Power BI and Azure Storage items, so I concentrated on those items.

    The week I’d orginally planned to take the test was spent taking a practice test every day, and then using the mistakes I’d made to focus on some new concepts. Once I passed 2 days in a row, I scheduled the exam. I spent the next 4 days taking practice tests and studying.

    One of the best things I did was get a notebook and a pen. I then watched John Savill’s Exam Cram and took notes by hand. I find that helps me remember things. I paused in a few areas if I wasn’t sure I knew what he was talking about and looked up details in MS Docs.

    The morning of the exam I went to the gym, which helps me relax. I then got a cup of coffee and took the practice test, but every question. All 150. I scored a 970, and thought I was ready.

    The Actual Exam

    While you can take this at home in a room by yourself, I wasn’t confident I could get by without someone interrupting me, or something going sideways at the ranch. I get interrupted regularly as people forget I’m working or don’t realize I’m on a call. I scheduled this at a local test center that I’ve used for years.

    If you haven’t been in a test center, it’s usually fairly strict. This one does FAA/Pilot testing, so they are very careful. The things to know:

    • Nothing goes in to the exam room with you (except mints).
    • You need an ID, they take a picture, have you digitally sign an MS doc, and paper sign a couple waivers as well.
    • Mask the whole time, which isn’t great with my readers
    • ID, watch, phone, even lip balm all get locked up. I take the key into the room.
    • I grabbed a few extra mints because I’m nervous.
    • There are dry erase markers and pens for notes, and ear muffs for quiet. Monitor, keyboard and mouse on the desk, cube partitions separating everyone and cameras above. In my center there are 8 desks and at least 3 cameras watching you.
    • I’ve never taken a break, but I also know to use the bathroom before going in (again, nervous). I did have an issue once, raised my hand, and within 3-4 minutes someone came in to check on me (computer froze).

    Exam Format

    The format is this:

    • 3 minute survey of your experience (how confident are you about azure rdbms, analytics, etc.)
    • 45 minutes for the exam, 49 questions. You can mark questions for review and then a list of these appears at the end that you can go back and change answers.
    • A mix of multiple choice (radio buttons), select x (2 or 3 answers required), lots of “click yes for true, no for false”, a few drag and drop from a list of answers.
    • No case studies, no free text entry
    • 3-4 minutes for feedback on specific questions. I thought a few were strangely worded, so I left feedback on some.

    The practice test mirrors this well.

    Exam Coverage

    I can’t disclose the questions, but I can give you a few things to think about. Note I got 49 of who knows how many questions. I would guess there is a pool of a few hundred, but I don’t know.

    If you look at the skills measured, I would say this about the major areas:

    • Describe core concepts – I had at last 3, maybe as many as 7 questions directly in this area. These are fairly easy to answer if you know what these are. I’ll do a couple prep posts in these areas.
    • Describe working with Relational Data – Again, I find the workload stuff fairly easy, and I had 2-3 questions here. The PaaS, IaaS stuff is important and I’ll post things that matter. The understanding of the basics of Azure SQL family, Synapse, and how you might “accidentally” work with PostgreSQL/MySQL/MariaBB matter. There also were some light questions on concepts around tools, connectivity, firewalls, and CLIs. Again, I’ll post prep. The T-SQL specifics were easy, a couple questions there.
    • Describe work with non-relational data – This is a weak area for me.I think some of this is not being completely confident on how/where I use different NoSQL structures, and the nomenclature being strange. Knowing the types of data stores and when to use them matters. Practice test helped here. You do need to know a good outline of CosmosDB and the Azure Storage structures. Glad I spent time here.
    • Describe Analytics workload – Also a weak area. I don’t know Synapse well, and I think the docs are poor. They tend to be written, in my opinion, assuming you know some things. They don’t describe things well, and to be fair, Synapse appears to have evolved a lot and quickly. You need to know a bit about when/where you use tools, understand some concepts about ADLS Gen 2, Databricks, Synapse, and HD Insight. A lot, but this is high level, not in the details. Know conceptually where you use ADF with these tools. The PowerBI stuff means you better know the What is Power BI? and the Basic Concepts docs well. Again, I’ll do a prep post.

    My Recommendations

    First, make sure you could explain each concept in the skills document to a friend, every single line, with about 3-4 minutes of talking. Not a highlight, but that you’d sound like you had a grasp of each area. If not, dig into docs.

    Second, if you want a good outline of data services on Azure, this helps you focus. You need to know the storage stuff, the relational options, and the analytics stuff. I felt like I learned a lot in about 3 weeks of prep. Not a ton each week, but regular. Really this was about 10 days of constant prep, something every day, and a few weeks of sporadic prep.

    Learning how to dig into and get a level of detail was tough, but the practice test was worth the $$$ to me. It helped me focus. Jon’s cram video, about 90 minutes, was a good place to start. I wish I’d done that first, taken notes, and then looked up weak areas.

    Hard to determine weak areas without testing. Again, practice tests help. I can’t mimic the exam without worrying about NDA, but I’ll try to give you a set of things to know in various posts.

    Work with a friend. I’m thinking to do some prep classes with my local user group. If you’re interested, let me know. Maybe I’ll just do some online recordings. Other people helped me, and I can give you a set of things to learn.

    Lastly, over prepare a bit. Don’t spend months, but think of this like a final exam from high school. Learn some things, practice a bit with the online stuff, and then increase your focus as the exam date approaches.

    If you have questions, ask. No specific questions or answers disclosed, but I’ll try to help where I can.

  • Goal Progress for Jan 2022

    I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2022.

    My first update. I spent most of January unwinding slightly and studying. So far, I think I’m doing OK.

    Here are the goals:

    Work

    • DP-900 – Passed
    • DP-300
    • Demo with SQL Server – 5%
    • Demo with PostgreSQL – 0%
    • Demo with MySQL – 0%
    • Feedback book – 68%
    • Good Strategy/Bad Strategy – 0%

    Personal

    • Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 0%
    • Create Report – 0%
    • Create Dashboard – 0%
    • Get people using it – 0%

    Community

      • Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping get one event set up
        – 33%
        • CO Springs event set up
      • Speak at 3 other user groups outside of Colorado – 33%
        • Spoke at DBA Fundamentals group
      • Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022
        • two scheduled, 2 more close
      • Volunteer 4 days with Habitat – 0 days

    Grade: B

    A good first month, but I need to keep moving forward in February.

  • The Great Developer Resignation

    In 2021, many companies had employees leave positions. The number of people resigning from their jobs was so high that the term “The Great Resignation” began appearing in many publications. A number of industries were affected, and there are no shortage of pundits and experts analyzing why. This happened primarily in the US, but the UK is concerned. This doesn’t appear to be happening in Europe, but there are concerns in Asia and Australia as well.

    The term feels misleading to me, as workers aren’t forgoing work. Rather, they’re changing jobs and looking for new positions, either at a better position in their field or leaving the field altogether. This is disruptive for firms, and costly, as finding new employees can be challenging and time-consuming. We also see a great loss to teams as the more talented employees find it easier to leave and replacing those people with less-skilled workers impacts their productivity.

    I ran across a couple of articles (US, UK) that talk specifically about the challenges when software developers leave. Many companies have realized the value that software brings to their business and feel the impact of the losses that come when they don’t (or can’t) execute on new application projects. The rush to DevOps is driven because better software and a smoother lifecycle improve the bottom line. Unfortunately, just as many companies don’t want to actually change and adopt better development practices, they often don’t want to change their culture, which impacts their ability to retain a talented workforce.

    It’s Friday, and you might spend a little time reading the articles and thinking about your position. If you feel you are good at your job and don’t necessarily enjoy the environment, workload, or compensation, should you think about leaving? Is now the time to ask for a better work environment? Should you look at companies that will give you remote work?

    The main question this week, which I know is hard to disclose publicly, is are you thinking about changing jobs? I expect few people to leave comments, but I’d ask you to think about your situation.

    We know that compensation matters, and many people find they can make a great living working with technology. However, there are other things that are important as well. Having a purpose that allows you to succeed at solving problems you enjoy, a culture that invigorates and stimulates you, autonomy to work on the things that your employer finds important, but in a way that suits you and your team. These are all items that attract talent. The reverse is also true, when you have a micro-managing, blameful culture where lots of uninteresting work is mandated. Those situations repel workers.

    As we come out of the pandemic, and organizations struggle to decide how to handle the future of offices and workplaces, there is a lot of power in workers’ hands. The last two years have shown that most of us can work remotely and get things done. We have the supply of skills that can’t meet the growing demand, and this is a good time to think about finding your dream job. If not the dream, then one that might be better than your current one.

    I have an amazing job at an amazing company, but not everyone does. If you enjoy your position, then good for you. You likely have more security now than ever. I know if I were still working for a few of my former employers, I’d certainly be setting myself up to find something as wonderful as I have now.

    Steve Jones

     

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