Career direction / salary expectations

nialo

Get straight to the point!! recently promoted to senior developer (asp.net c#) within my current job. Working in development for 3 years now. There is an upcoming role within the company for a mssql dba (training and exams paid for). I have being asked if i would be interested in taking on this role as well as my current position. Changing my development role into a more backend architecture developer (which would suit me) and moving away from web front end design.

Does this career direction suit the current direction of the IT market? Any advice on taking the training for the dba? and what would be the expected as a salary. Current salary isnt great to be honest. got the promotion after the pay raise last year....

Ginger

Will you be changing roles comepletely or expected to perform DBA stuff as well as development

If thats the case thats a pain in the ass as they are two vastly different skillsets. DBAs rarely do design more admin such as security, permissioning, backups, clustering and indexing . Especially in the MCITP DBA role within SQL 2005.

Maybe you should look at the DB Developer style role, which is more on the database design side of things.

Do you want to move into DB design & software arch or pure network arch??

nialo

I wouldnt be change roles completely, would still be developing. I havent gotten the ins and outs of the role fully yet but i would be pushing more toward the DB Developer style. Yes i know there is a vast amount of admin work within a dba role but the backups and actually server maintanence would not be a main part of the role. there is already a backup manager and server maintanence procedure in place which is looked after by another person.

Find the DB design & software arch more interesting. so want to go down that road...

Ginger

So more on the DB Designer role is what this is pitched to you as, rather than a DBA..

Well thats a good thing. Understanding good DB design is one of the tricks towards better solutions.

Kernel32

I will try and put a different perspective on this. Roles that have high visibility within a business and require you to hone your soft skills have much better chance of longevity and good compensation. When your doing back end work your hidden away, and are generally easier to outsource or just get rid of. If you're really really good at what you do you are usually pretty safe and will do well but in all honesty most people in IT are mediocre and the star players are few and far between.

Ginger

I definately agree with Kernal about the soft skills stuff. I spent so much time teaching people about computer concepts when i was first starting out that I can do requirements gathering very well, as well as the all important knowing what questions to ask so you can really find out what the customer wants.

For example, how many web devs have been told.. we want a website.. Can you build it. Learning how to wrangle the requirements from the customer is a long process and comes with having someone go.. well thats not what i wanted!

Also the equally important ability of being able to explain complex computing concepts in terms your audience can understand. I sold 15 computers to farmers back in 1997 by being able to explain how the machine worked in relation to their farm.. quite funny when I look at it now.

Anyways, having DB design and data modelling experience is very handy when you start to move into the whole architecture roles.

My current role is a senior developer and along with 3 other senior devs we are the buffer between management and the other 20 MS developers. We take certain aspects of the whole process and mind it. Mine is certification and systems architecture. I am MS certified to the gills hence why I am taking all certification on, have to attempt to bring all the devs up to MCTS/MCPD level!

We also do a lot of specification checking, code reviews, teaching and guidance. So a little less development, a lot more management.

If I were you, I would looking at getting some management experience, it will benefit you more in the long run. See if that can meshed in the db design role so that when someone is doing some db stuff they run it by you and you can help with the training of other people etc etc. Looks great when you want to go higher.

nialo

Cheers for the advice. Know in the long term i dont want to be doing coding for a living but figured i would get a better base if i can build something from the ground up. Currently i do the requirements gathering as part of the internal systems we design. Very small development team so we end up doing all of the parts for a system. from user requirements throught to maintanence and training.

any more thoughts or advice welcome.

N.

stevenmu

Like Ginger says, it sounds more like a DB developer role they're pitching at you than DBA. If that's the case then IMHO that can only be a good thing. Having DB dev skills gives you more exposure to the whole product development lifecycle, and having it as a skill on your CV will open up many more opportunities than just ASP.Net on it's own.

Depending on your extra responsibilities, I wouldn't expect much of a salary increase, if any, immediately. But as you look to advance your career further it will definitely help, especially if you get into a lot of detail with it.