Glenn Street, senior database specialist with Copyright Clearance Center, shares with us some insights about being, or becoming, a database administrator (DBA):
Q: What’s the nutshell description of a DBA?
A: It’s the person in charge of care and feeding of databases, usually those that are business critical. Some are on the production side and generally monitor the databases that the organization relies on to make money. Others are on the development side and help applications folks make good decisions about how to define databases and their structure—they sometimes even get into writing code themselves.
Q: What are the key traits of exceptional DBAs?
A: In general, what makes a great DBA stand out is communications skills. A lot of introverts are attracted to the job, including myself, but you have to be able to see yourself as a service-oriented person and you need to consider other ways of fixing a problem or constructing a database that may be as good or better than your own. More specifically, a production-side DBA needs to have ice water in the veins and be pretty much unflappable in the face of a crisis—when a database goes down you need to be able to get at the root cause and fix it quickly but without caving into pressure to just get it back up immediately by any means. development-side DBAs need to be able to see things in a holistic fashion and understand more than just the database itself but also how it interacts with other aspects of the organization.
Q: What are some key factors organizations should consider when looking for DBAs?
A: Much like the DBAs themselves, organizations have to understand communication is a key component. Companies scouting for talent want to get everything in one package, and might reject a candidate because he or she has experience with only four of the five technologies ultimately required for the role. I would submit that if a person is strong in all but one skill that a company wants and is also a skilled communicator, it would be worth considering whether that person can be trained in the “missing” skill. Organizations and DBA job hunters themselves should look for high quality matchups based on existing and projected skillsets, factoring in communication skills and the capacity to learn.
