Voice of the DBA

Tag: career2

  • Do You Want a Meritocracy at Work?

    The best tend to rise to the top in sports. Do you want that in technology?
    The best tend to rise to the top in sports. Do you want that in technology?

    Professional sports tend to be a meritocracy in most cases. If your natural athletic talent lets you run faster, jump higher, or perform some other skill better than others, you tend to get more time to play, more money, more recognition, etc. It’s not absolute, and at those high skill levels other factors come into play, but for the most part we find bars of skill that a person must exceed to make money at their sport.

    In the technology business, I’m not sure that’s true. However I want to know how you feel about the idea of skills being used to determine your career advancement.

    Do you want to work in a meritocracy at your job?

    Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean the harder or longer you work, the more money you’ll make, or the more promotions you’ll get. It may mean that the newest, youngest person at your company might rise much faster than you simply because they’re a better DBA or developer.

    This doesn’t mean you never get a raise, but if you’ve settled in your job, if you’re a Dead Sea technologist, then you might be limited to cost of living increases and the dreary, less exciting work that no one else wants to do.

    I know there are problems with determining “better” in many jobs, and it’s hard to measure the productivity and value of people in relation to each other in an objective way. However, if we could, then I’m asking if that’s what you’d prefer. Would you like to work in a place where the more talented people rise faster than the average worker, regardless of seniority, friendliness with management, or any other non-skill based measure.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • The Five Year Plan

    18954IT departments won’t exist in five years. A bold prediction from the CITE conference last week. It’s not so much a prediction of an increase in cloud services, but more the idea that the centralized IT department is struggling with the consumerization of technology, the increasing demands of the business for faster turnaround on projects and prototypes, and the flexibility being demanded by an increasingly technology savvy workforce.

    Like most predictions, I take this one with a grain of salt. I don’t think five years is enough time to change the face of the enterprise IT groups. Five years ago the first iPhone had been out for a year and was being demanded by users to replace their Blackberries. These days many corporations support iPhones, along with other smartphones, and Blackberries have disappeared from many organizations. However IT has adapted, released some of their control, and even integrated some of their policies into new technologies. When I enabled corporate mail on my smartphone recently, I had to allow some remote management features to get mail, which was fine with me.

    I do agree that we will start to see some of our IT functions, especially small projects and POC (proof of concepts) increasingly being driven in departments. There are too many projects, too many different technologies, and too little time to work on them for central IT departments to tackle all these projects. Departmental management won’t wait for IT that is stretched too thin, especially if they have existing staff that have some technology skills. That latter factor is something becoming more and more common all the time.

    However I can’t see central IT disappearing. There are often quite a few systems that are complex, that are too large, too important to let someone manage part time. There are projects that cross departments, or even the entire company, and coordinating tasks and resources between departments is complex. Add to all of this the problems and hassles of hiring good technology people, and I can see projects rising in departments, but being turned over at times to IT to manage.

    I do think that central IT groups need to be more flexible, and reduce some of their rules, or adapt them to new technologies and platforms. I expect people working in central staff to be “lent” to departments for projects, perhaps even multiple departments at the same time to help get projects completed, while also gaining some training on the various systems in order to provide support when other staff isn’t available. Such as weekends.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy. Due to technical issues, we have no podcasts today. Actually, Steve’s camera died and he is in the process of replacing it. Hopefully we’ll be back tomorrow with the podcast.

  • The Joy of Technology

    Here's my Airplay receiver.
    Here’s my Airplay receiver.

    I ran across this piece on the joy of being a programmer, which resonated with me. I started at a programmer, at about the same age, 10 or so. I’m a little older than the author, but I’ve spent most of my life in the technology business, primarily working with SQL Server, but I’ve built software as well. I’m still building a little software, mostly for fun. I recently set up a Raspberry Pi to stream Airplay music from my idevices and created a ball shooting Lego Mindstorm robot. Granted the latter wasn’t much programming, but I’ve backed a Kickstarter project that will allow me to write some more complex code for the Legos with my kids and I’m looking forward to receiving the kit.

    Programming has been a fun hobby and career for me. Whether that’s been working in a front end language like C++ or VB, writing T-SQL that produces reports, or even scripting administrative tasks in VB Script or Powershell, it’s always a challenge. I find myself going through the same pattern of emotions over and over. Excitement as I start a project, confidence in an initial solution, frustration when things don’t work, and a smile after the burst of creativity that finds a solution. Granted, I may iterate through these emotions a few times, perhaps even spending more time struggling than solving, but it’s been an endeavor that I enjoy most of the time.

    Just like the author, I’ve had success in my career, and found technology to be a better job than many other jobs that people I’ve worked with have had. Looking at the accountants, the managers, the salespeople, and all the other workers in the various organizations I’ve been a part of, I think I’ve had one of the better jobs that exist in the world today. Physically easy work, mentally challenging, well paid, and with demand for workers. I hope you feel the same way about your technology career.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • T-SQL Tuesday #42–The Long and Winding Road

    tsqltuesdayIt’s T-SQL Tuesday time, this month hosted by Wendy Pastrick who asks you to talk about the Long and Winding Road. Wendy asks us to talk about your job, your road map to the future, and what might be in store for you.

    T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party on the second Tuesday of each month, hosted by a different person. You can participate by writing a blog post on the topic for the month and following a few rules that you’ll find in Wendy’s invitation.

    If you want to host yourself one month, contact Adam Machanic (@AdamMachanic).

    The Long and Winding Road

    I’ve been in the same job for about 11 years: the editor of SQLServerCentral as my primary role. About 6 years ago, Red Gate Software bought the site, and I now work for them. The job is mostly the same, though a couple things have changed over the years. Three years ago I made an effort to begin speaking more, both on technical topics as well as Red Gate software. I’ve had a busy speaking schedule across that time, and I’m scheduled for about 15 events in 2013.

    That change in speaking for me, along with the SQL in the City events that Red Gate sponsors keeps me busy with building presentations and delivering them all over the world.

    These events are designed to provide attendees with free training just like other conferences with one exception: we can talk about Red Gate tools. The sessions I do aren’t marketing talks about the tools, but rather presentations about things you should do in your environment, but I do show how the tools Red Gate provides makes these tasks easier. That’s the idea behind our tools: they make you more productive.

    This year that has meant I’m moving a little bit away from the administration areas where I spent most of my career and back into some development work. I’ve been setting up Git and working with source control, learning about Continuous Integration, and more. Mostly this is to support the work Red Gate is doing on Deployment Manager, which I think is a great idea. It solves a lot of problems and hassles that I’ve dealt with when developing software. I’m excited, and looking forward to seeing how people like the tool, as well as watching it evolve based on feedback.

    I have no plans to leave my job or Red Gate in the foreseeable future. The position I’m in is unique, and I don’t expect to move up, or around, in the company because of that, but that’s OK.

    I have the best job in the world.