Starting an Intentional Journey

People talk about two types of database administrators: intentional and accidental. Intentional database administrators ignite their careers with the explicit intentions of becoming a DBA. They generally know what the job responsibilities entail, and they work towards building their technical skillset explicitly towards that profession. Accidental database administrators on the other hand accidentally fall into the career. Generally speaking, they tend to start off in a small shop, owning some other technical stack. Then at some point, that shop wants to adopt some sort of relational database software and the poor soul who gets tasked with installing it usually gets that DBA badge crookedly sewn onto their shirt at some point down the line. I fell into the category of an intentional database administrator.

I got the advice from my dad sometime in high school to become a database administrator if I wanted good job security and a good salary because “Every company has data and every company needs someone to manage that data.” I’m paraphrasing of course but that was the gist. High school me heard those words come in one ear and it went out the other, because that career advice really inconvenienced my plans to become a professional baseball player. Nonetheless, in 2019 after three changes of my major in college, no real idea of what I wanted to do, and a girlfriend (now fiancée and soon to be wife) that had more internships and career goals than she knew what to do with, I felt extremely behind. Luckily, I remembered my dad’s trusty advice. So, I set on the intentional path of becoming a database administrator.

Life as a Single Shop DBA

I got my first real start in database administration working as a single shop DBA. I was really blessed to start at the company I did. The reason for that is because I was really able to get a good foundation and understanding of the fundamentals by learning from the other senior DBAs on the team. Not to mention too, the company I worked for pretty much only had enterprise edition of SQL Server and liked to turn on all of the bells and whistles SQL has to offer. So I got a good amount of exposure to the various features and tools in SQL Server. I really did get to learn in a controlled environment, which is absolutely key for a new database administrator. I quickly grew there and owned more and more DBA responsibilities. I practiced outside of practice, if you will, and spent hours upon hours reading, doing trainings, and applying my learnings in the real world. Being a single shop DBA, meaning you’re working at one company and solely working in their environment, you get really good at solving their problems, and knowing their SQL Server real-estate like the back of your hand. Even the inconsistent, weird issues that come up become consistent if that makes any sense.

Life as a single shop DBA for me ended up getting very repetitive, technically speaking, almost predictable. You logon each morning, work tickets, get pinged constantly by developers trying to jump ahead in line asking for “quick help”, and the feeling of being stagnant in the journey of sharpening your DBA skillset quickly comes over you. I’m not saying this is the experience for everyone, this was just mine. Also keep in mind this wasn’t my feeling the entire time I was there, just towards the end before I left. I don’t regret my time I spent as a single shop DBA. I think it was 100% necessary and I’m so grateful for the whole DBA team there for being patient with me while I was learning, letting me own some more technically advanced projects as I developed, and giving me the opportunity to get into the field.

Life as a DBA Consultant

My next career endeavor, that of which I’m currently in as I write this, is that of a DBA consultant. I work at a consulting company with a lot of incredibly talented and smart individuals. Some of them are known in the MS/ SQL community and have held the MS MVP titles as well. It goes without saying that imposter syndrome was running rampant for quite some time when I started here. For me, life as a consultant is much more fast paced than a single shop DBA. You’re constantly having to context switch, which at times, is extremely overwhelming. Having to be responsible for clients’ retainers, hour usage, billing, monthly check-ins, meetings, technical projects, triaging emergencies and outages, and much more I’m sure I’m forgetting, sometimes has me thinking that I wish I could take a vacation as a single shop DBA.

As a quick side note, I’m really trying to approach this post from a truly unfiltered perspective; my perspective. In no way am I trying to insinuate that “Oh my life is so hard cause I’m a consultant and single shop DBAs have it easy.” Far from it. I know both sides have their positives and negatives, and I respect them both. Anyways, I digress…

You’re constantly drinking from the firehose as a consultant. I thought I had a lot of exposure as a single shop DBA, but I was immediately proven wrong getting into consulting. It feels like everyday I’m learning something new, or hearing of a new issue one of my colleagues was working on. Another thing about consulting is that clients look to you as the source of truth, and while it’s absolutely okay not to know something, or flat out say “I don’t know”, you have to get crafty with the way you say it. It’s extremely humbling to be put in positions multiple times throughout the week, where you’re on a meeting with a client, they ask you a technical question, and you don’t know the answer. I’ve gotten more comfortable with the idea of not knowing something. Actually, a better way to put it is I’m a lot more accepting in realizing that you don’t have to know everything being in IT, and saying “I don’t know” does not negate any experience, skillset, or competence you possess. In fact, it humanizes you.

Consulting is great for career and technical skillset growth. You are exposed to so much every day. You learn a crap ton. Most importantly, you apply your skill set a crap ton. I just went through a weekend where I spent three days migrating 36 SQL Servers. 46 in total for this project so far. Do you realize how many reps that is for me going through that? That means I’ve had to do 46 installs of SQL Server, 46 repetitions of configuring SQL Server to best practices, 46 installs of native backup jobs, 46 repetitions of using PowerShell to migrate databases, logins, other objects from one server to another, several cases of setting up and cutting over log shipping, and not to mention, numerous sessions of troubleshooting all aspects of pre and post migration steps. When I first transferred into consulting, I was deathly afraid of migrations, mainly for the fact that I just hadn’t gotten to do a whole lot of them at my last job. Now I can approach them with much more confidence. I’ve gotten more exposure to Always On Availability Groups than I ever have. Supporting them, troubleshooting them, building them and the windows cluster from scratch. Replication… well, we won’t talk about replication, but you get my point. Consulting is a melting pot of environment setups. You learn so much and it will dramatically boost your technical skillset.

Another topic to touch on with consulting is that it also helps boost soft skills as well. As a consultant, you have to constantly communicate with clients, explain technical topics to sometimes non-technical people, handle unique personalities, and be their lead DBA. That’s a lot of responsibility. It helps you practice being confident in your abilities, and gives you the tools to learn how to adjust your approaches with people, given the personality you’re working with.

My Final Thoughts

I’m not going to lie, I have moments where I’m so glad I left being a single shop DBA and started consulting. I also have moments where I would give anything to be back with my old colleagues, and have a slower pace with the knowledge I have now. The point I’m trying to make, is in my experience, there are tradeoffs, and there are a lot of factors that I didn’t touch on today that would influence someone to be either a single shop DBA or a DBA consultant. Some of those factors include work-life balance, salary, job satisfaction and happiness, company culture, values, etc… However, for me, at this point in my life, I’m really enjoying consulting. Not to say I’ll never be a single shop DBA again, but maybe later on in my career I’ll wind up at a shop where the pace isn’t so rapid. I loved my time at my first job as a DBA. I’m grateful for all of the members of the DBA team (you know who you are if you’re reading this). They helped shape me into the DBA I am today, and without them, I’m not sure if I would have had the confidence or capability to roll into consulting as a DBA. If you’re just starting out in your career, I would definitely recommend starting off as a single shop DBA. You learn the fundamentals at a slower pace in my opinion and get to apply them in a controlled environment. Consulting is great too. You learn so much at such a fast pace and it exponentially expands your technical and soft skillset. I’ve learned throughout my time consulting how to context switch, stay calm under chaos and triage emergencies, as well as remove personal emotions when dealing with complex individuals to achieve a common goal. There’s nothing I’d trade for my experiences, good or bad. They’ve shaped me into the Senior DBA I am today, and I’m damn proud of that.