Voice of the DBA

Tag: work

  • Un-Stable Teams

    I’ve always valued having a team of people I know and can work with. While I haven’t had a lot of long-term jobs before Redgate, I have had a few positions that lasted more than a year and appreciated working with the same group for a long time. We might gain or lose a person, but overall, the structure of the team was the same day after day. This was a comfortable atmosphere, and I liked knowing who I was working with each day.

    At Redgate, we have had some stable teams of people, but in our engineering area, we move teams around. There is an annual re-teaming each December/January where engineers can choose to leave their team and ask to transfer to another one. They get to put in their top three choices (or remain on their team), and we do a good job of trying to match up everyone’s preferences. The number and charter of teams do change a bit each year, so engineers get visibility into the structure we’re planning before they mark a preference. It seems from our internal reports that we match up 99% of engineers with their first or second choices (first choice is in the high 80s).

    Recently our head of engineering talked about the dangers of a long-term stable team vs. making changes. Chris Smith noted that 25-33% of engineers look to move, which is my impression. I get to know who works on different products (or parts of them), and while I often know year-to-year who can help with which issues, I’m also surprised by the changes at times.

    I’m also disappointed sometimes because some very talented engineers will leave a team to move to another. That can worry me as I know how much knowledge is leaving. At the same time, as Chris pointed out, sometimes very talented people will leave an organization because they feel stuck in one job. There also is value in cognitive diversity, which is something I look for. We need to get along, but I like working with people that think differently than I do.

    I haven’t seen this need to move as much in operations teams as in development teams. Maybe the nature of the person who supports systems is different than those who build them, but I do find long-term system administrators sometimes struggle with change and improvements. I’m not fond of change for change’s sake, and I want to justify new technologies/protocols/etc. However, I also think as technology changes, we ought to objectively evaluate if it’s better. Not all change is, but some certainly improve the environment.

    Do you prefer a stable team or do you like to change periodically? A lot of companies move people around, sometimes on a schedule, to ensure they can grow and bring new ideas and perspectives to other teams. Does your employer do this? Do you like the idea or would you prefer not to re-team periodically?

    Steve Jones

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

  • A Great Place to Work

    I have had quite a few employers in my career. Of the ones that paid me for computer work, I’ll say that there were 3 great ones (1 I owned), 2 average ones, and 3 poor ones. I’ve had a few other minor times or contract situations where I didn’t really judge or care one way or the other. A lot of time is spent at work, but if it’s days/week/(few months), I can deal with most situations. That being said, even at the poor places, I learned a lot and I grew, so I don’t regret them or wouldn’t want them removed from my past. There are always good and bad things about any job. As I tell my kids, every job is a job some days, even my amazing position at Redgate.

    Recently my employer, Redgate Software, was on a number of Best Places to Work lists in the US. We took 28th in the US (5th in Austin, 4th in LA, 10th in NY) with higher rankings when you filtered to mid-sized businesses. While I don’t work in those places, I do go to our offices, and I think we have an amazing culture, workplace environment, support, and training for staff. We’re a mid-sized company now with a bit over 500 people, which is amazing. I was person 146, but I’ve known the company since it was 8 people. As it’s grown, I think Redgate has done a great job under Simon Galbraith’s leadership of building a place to work that is productive and profitable, but enjoyable and interesting. Our current CEO, Jakub Lamik, has continued to help Redgate thrive, both as a business and as an employer.

    Many of you reading this are data professionals in some way and likely work for someone else. Do you think you have a great employer? Are you happy with the workplace, be it in an office, at home, or some combination? Would you vote for your employer as one of the best places to work in your city? I didn’t here, but I would. We’ve regularly made similar lists in Cambridge, UK, where I’ve most often visited an office.

    I worked at home for 5 years before I started at Redgate, and since then I’ve mostly worked at home. I regularly visit offices 4-10 times a year, mostly in Cambridge, but also in Pasadena, Austin, and New York. I appreciate that we built offices that are comfortable to use, with plenty of tech that makes life easy for employees. We are flexible with hours, and even the rules we set in place can flex or bend for individual situations. We hire smart, motivated people, and everyone learns how to both be supportive and accommodating while holding themselves and others accountable for work. I think we are sometimes too nice, but that might be my cut-throat US business upbringing compared to the UK style of work.

    To be fair, Redgate isn’t for everyone, and we have had no shortage of people leave in our 25-year history. We’ve also had quite a few people leave and come back, realizing not only is the grass not greener elsewhere, there are plenty of worse places to work. I don’t love everything about Redgate, but I do enjoy working with a diverse group of people from many different countries and backgrounds, with a very wide variety of experience relating to databases. I learn from many, get ideas from different viewpoints, and get the chance to try and better explain databases (DevOps, monitoring, etc.) from my point of view and experience.

    I loved working at JD Edwards, and I really enjoyed my partnership with Brian Knight and Andy Warren at SQL Server Central. Redgate is up there with those organizations as a great place to work and one I enjoy almost every day. Can you say the same thing? If not, hopefully, you find your situation more positive than negative.

    Steve Jones

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

  • Suppressing the FOMO

    I saw a post recently on Twitter/X/whatever we call it. It was for a DevOps in a Day from Redgate taking place in Jacksonville.

    2023-10-19 16_17_28-way0utwest ️ (He_Him_His) on X_ _@ReviewMyDB @redgate @GFritchey Enjoy. Sorry

    I’ve been a part of the tour this fall, and when we announced the Jacksonville date, Jeff reached out and asked if we could get together. I told him I wasn’t coming, and he asked why not. At the time I said I was busy and wanted the week off, which was true. I’m not sure Jeff felt that made sense, but Grant was going, so everything was fine.

    However

    When I saw the post, I felt like I should be there and I was missing out. I slightly regretted not going. After all, the week this event took place, I was at home, with no travel.

    That was my first M-F week at home since July 10-14. I was trying to protect it, and I think I did the right thing by not going and letting Grant handle things, but I still felt bad. I had some FOMO (Fear of missing out).

    FOMO

    I find FOMO drives a lot of people to do extra things. They do more work, they go places, they get caught up with friends/coworkers/family/etc. because they want to participate in something that’s fun or valuable or helpful to their career.

    I get it. I feel the same way, but I have learned often to step back from situations. This year, I knew the fall would be tough with travel, but I was also excited and looking forward to the tour. I wanted it to go well and for Redgate to do more in 2024.

    However.

    I don’t need to do it all. Grant can handle the day, and if not, Ryan can help. We’ve already talked about the need to plan further in advance and split the load. There is plenty of work.

    We’re Not Saving Babies

    My wife has used this phrase a lot. Most of us aren’t saving babies. If you are, then work hard, heck work 100 hours a week and then take time off, but save babies.

    Most of us do work that could wait until tomorrow. We can let someone else do some of the work. Even if someone does a better job, often there is so much work that they company will still need you to do something.

    Certainly Redgate will still use me at some events, and I’ll still travel.

    I just don’t need to do all the events.

    I keep telling myself that I’m certainly not saving babies, and there is plenty of other work. And, I’ve been to Jacksonville (and many other places) this year. I can skip a few trips.

    Side Note

    Even as I had FOMO, I had just sent an email to the US offices thanking them for an invitation to the Christmas parties, but declining to go since I didn’t want to get on another airplane this year. I still have two trips after this week, and I’m limiting my life to those.

  • Flexible Work Policies are Preferred

    The great post-pandemic, post-Great-Resignation, hybrid/remote/in-the-office work debate continues. It seems almost every week I see more stories that report on, hype, attempt to prove, or otherwise stoke emotions about whether the future of work for many people is more likely in any of these three situations. One company mandates everyone back in the office, another goes completely remote, and it seems many can’t decide and have some sort of hybrid approach.

    Your boss might have strong opinions on one of these situations, which may or may not align with your organization. I see CEOs wanting one thing and individual managers sometimes wanting another. As much as I like remote working, and I’ve been based out of my home for over two decades, I also like seeing people and I am regularly traveling to the various Redgate offices (along with Grant and Ryan).

    If you want to try and sway your boss to let you work more flexibly, which is likely remote or hybrid, perhaps this article will help. There’s research from at least one company showing that having a flexible policy has helped a number of companies hire faster in 2023. While this isn’t in any particular geography, industry, or role, it does show that finding employees seems to be faster with flexible policies. That makes sense as the more remote you are, the more people in your pool of potential candidates.

    Of course, this doesn’t say if these people stick around, or if they’re qualified. Certainly many of us in the tech industry see plenty of candidates (or even coworkers) that don’t seem qualified for many, or any, roles. Hiring faster isn’t always good if there aren’t good candidates, but having more choices of who to hire does give you an edge in finding qualified candidates.

    It also gives you more work to do in separating those you’d consider hiring from those you wouldn’t. The flip side as well is that if you are flexible, then perhaps you can convince some already employed, talented workers to come to your organization.

    To be fair, many of us with these options are very lucky. There are lots of jobs where this isn’t a debate and people must show up to work every day. Cooks, taxi drivers, retail workers, and many, many more. This is a luxury issue, but it is still an issue. My view is that lots of knowledge work can be done remotely. However, I also think that teams gain something when they bond and get to know each other in person. Day-to-day work is great remote, but brainstorming and creativity work better sometimes when people are in the same room. Not always, but there are times it is better.

    So let your boss know that they might be able to better fill their open positions if they’re flexible. Maybe you’ll convince them to be more flexible with you as well.

    Steve Jones

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