Tag: career

During the PASS Data Community Summit last week, Brent Ozar delivered the day 3 keynote, and it was great. I really enjoyed the format and topic, and I look forward to how someone else might be creative next year with the time. I’d certainly love to do the keynote, though not sure I’d be eligible. I’m hoping a few others get interested and compete for the slot in 2022.

One of the things Brent mentioned was about looking for skills to focus on, primarily for “builder,” or those that develop new applications. He used a quote from Wayne Gretzky: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” The reference is to pick things that will be relevant in the future (where the puck will be), not where things are today.

Lots of people ask questions and wonder about this when we look at technology. What should I learn? Where is my best investment for the next ten or twenty years? There also is plenty of fear that you might learn to be an expert in something like Notification Services (dead after 2005) or Database Mirroring (deprecated in 2012). The other day I heard a few people say “graph is dead” in SQL Server, and I might agree. The features exist, but are they really growing and improving enough to compete with a graph platform? I’d argue no.

I don’t have a crystal ball to tell you what will be popular. I have a magic 8 ball, but that’s less helpful. Here are a few things I’d suggest to help you think about this. Please, if you have specific questions, engage in the discussion, and I or someone else can try to help.

First, the ability to work in a team is important. The skills to communicate well, debate a point, and collaborate in how you work are important. Not critical because plenty of people can get by without these skills, but when we look to hire new people, often we want to bond. If I find 10 qualified candidates and get along well with 2 in an interview, I’m likely picking one of the two. Learn to speak in small groups, summarize your thoughts, advocate your position, and appreciate others’ views. Also learn to accept defeat gracefully when things don’t go your way.

Second, learn more about the choices your employer has made. Brent mentioned this a bit, but honestly, if your employer is focused on SQL Server on premises or in a VM, learn to run that well. Learn more about how it works and how to solve problems or tune it. If they want to use AWS RDS or Azure SQL Database, focus on those. Spend spare time, or quiet time at work, becoming more proficient with the platform. Read about it and practice on it. It will help you enjoy your current job, increase promotion and raise chances, and give you some confidence if you do need to change jobs.

Third, learn to learn. Always be learning, and follow the advice above, or even pick the things that pique your interest. The important thing here is that if you need to pick something up, you want to be comfortable with those skills. How do I search out info on the Internet. Can I find videos or articles to consume and can I take sample code and stat using it? Can I set up new environments? Am I comfortable poking around a cloud portal or digging into a programming API? Maybe most importantly, can I sit through and absorb information from a Pluralsight (or other) course? All good skills.

Lastly, part of skating to where you want to go is writing a resume/CV that gets you an interview. I’ve given this advice, and Brent did as well. Include keywords on your resume. If you decided to use Snowflake, I’d find a way to mention Synapse and Redshift on my resume. If you are good at Snowflake, you are likely going to be good at Redshift and Synapse. What you aren’t going to be good at is convincing a non-technical, HR person searching for your resume that these are synonyms if they aren’t included in your resume. Maybe you only want Snowflake jobs. That’s fine, decline the interview. Maybe you need a new job, and in that case, don’t limit yourself. Get past the AI or human filters.

Actively managing your career takes some work and effort, and it takes some knowledge. Improve your skills, but take advice from those of us that have walked the paths. Ensure you represent yourself well, both with your avatar (the resume/CV), and in person for the interview. These won’t ensure you get a job, but they to help increase your chances.

Steve Jones

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

I haven’t burned out, but I’ve been close. There was a time a few years back when I was working a lot, traveling a lot, trying to watch activities with my kids, making time for my wife, and more. While I have had stretches were I feel like that (like the last month), usually I have calm periods that balance my out. Across about 18 months, I realized I hadn’t gotten enough breaks and worked with my boss to lighten the load.

During the last 18 months under the pandemic, I’ve had a few busy times, and some stress, but overall, I’ve managed to cope well. My coping tips have helped, and I’ve made a conscious effort to demand less of myself and slow down. It helps that I work for a UK company that values balance and tries to ensure employees work hard, but not too hard. While I  sometimes struggle and get very busy, I do get to balance that out and relax at times.

That hasn’t been the case for everyone this past year. There is a blog about developer burnout, noting that a lot of developers shouldered a larger workload during the pandemic. I think the move to remote work is stressful, and it can be hard to adjust to expectations, or know what we should expect. There is often a feeling when you work remotely that you need to do more, because no one else can see how hard you are working. There is also a temptation to take some of the time that you used to spend commuting and get a few “extra” things done each day.

Many managers also haven’t known how to adapt to remote work and can add to stress with either more work, higher expectations, or a lack of awareness of how employees feel. They may unknowingly, or purposefully, make things worse. Add to all of this the challenges of managing kids, juggling noise in your workspace, and finding space to work with others in the house. It’s no wonder many people felt some burnout in the last year.

The article gives some stages of burnout, a way to measure yourself, and some strategies for coping. While a lot of these may feel like common sense, when we are overwhelmed and busy, we often forget common sense. It’s easy to dismiss the effectiveness of simple strategies. It’s also easy to underestimate just how much better you will feel by taking even small steps to combat burnout. Even things you think might make a tiny difference can help.

I know there are some very poor work environments and awful managers. If you are in these situations, I’d urge you to look hard to find a new position somewhere, anywhere. Even another bad job will give you a change of scenery and can help in the short term. Even in the poor jobs, however, I’ve often had others that felt the same way in my team or in a related team. Talking, sharing, and bonding with others in a similar situation can help, if for no other reason than you can share, vent, and empathize with each other.

Burnout is a real problem among technology workers. It’s not a personal failure, but it is something that you have to recognize in your situation. It is also important to make changes and find ways to reduce the stress of your situation over time. There aren’t usually quick fixes, but there are ways to change your life to better handle the situation.

If you are struggling, please reach out to friends, family, or others and get help. Things can get better.

Steve Jones

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

I keep busy. My wife and I tend to be type-A people, tackling lots of things and keeping very busy. We work hard, and often, a lot. Our spare time in the winter is spent with second jobs, coaching youth volleyball. My kids think that we can be a little unbalanced at times, not taking enough time off or getting away from work. I agree. They are better balanced in life than my wife and I.

The thing I tell me self is that keeping busy and being driven has helped me have a great life and a great career. It’s also created lots of stress, perhaps more than I should have. I thought about this balance as I was watching I Can’t Keep Up!, Catherine Wilhelmsen’s keynote from Data Saturday Oslo. It’s a great talk and worth your time to watch. She tells you that while you can do anything, or almost anything, that you want, it’s not necessarily easy. You have to work, but you have to find some balance.

The world of technology has grown at a crazy pace during my life. As I’ve watched the growth of cloud capabilities from vendors, I’ve felt the same things Catherine has. I can’t keep up, I don’t have time to keep up, and everyone likely knows more than me about many things.

All of those things are mostly true.

I can’t keep up, I don’t really have time to try, and certainly, there are plenty of people who know more than me about any particular thing. However, I should learn to accept those things, not worry about them.

It’s easy to get stressed or feel discouraged at your lack of being an expert in your field. There is good advice in the talk, but the thing that I try to remind myself of often is that I know more than last year. I am good at some things, and I continue to improve my skills in some areas. Most importantly, I can prioritize, pick a few things, and then work on those across time, which is enough to help me succeed.

I have learned to set a few reminders each month and focus at those times on something that I want or need to learn. I also allow myself some free time to improve myself in a general way, without an agenda. I struggle with distractions, but I do try to remind myself to focus when I have time. The key in technology is learn how to learn. Don’t worry about picking the perfect technology or being as efficient as you can. Just learn something and get comfortable with regularly learning about new skills. Even if you choose something you never use later, you are building the skill and habit of learning.

It’s good to challenge yourself, but be realistic, and more importantly, find balance. If you are starting out in your career, without many external obligations, you may have more time to work on your career, but you also have more to learn. Be patient with yourself and learn to enjoy life outside of your career field, even if you spend lots of hours trying to grow your career skills.

If you are older, perhaps you pick something related to your work, or perhaps you pick something that interests you. Either way, exercising your brain and gaining new skills, however slight, is helpful.

Always remember, we work to live, not the other way around.

Steve Jones

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