Re: Salaries

> Hi:
>
> I have a question about salaries for Oracle DBA's, Unix
Adminis,
> and Network Engineers.
>
> Currently, I am an Oracle DBA with a strong Unix backgroud
who is
> making the high 70's in the U.S.
>
> Recently someone tried to sell me on the idea of getting my
Cisco
> certification and making a job change to tcp networking
engineering.
> They claimed that it would pay far better then eith Unix
admin or
> Oracle DBA.
>
> I've been doing Unix and Oracle for close to 10 to 15 years
now; if
> I do as this guy suggested, I would be almost throwing that
away. Further,
> I find that it would cost approx 10,000 in classes to pass
the exams
> and get the certification.
>
> I have a strong feeling that this would be a foolish move. Do
you
> agree?
>
> Perhaps my salary of the high 70's is out of scale? Should I
be
> able to get much more by hunging around in my current field
without
> shlepping the bucks to get the Cisco cert and then changing
gears?
> How much to top DBA's and Unix admins get verses tcpip
guru's?
>
> Thanks
>
> Marv
>
>

Certification is only a way for companies to make money from book sales, lectures and tests. The amount of experence you gain from real world stuff is far more than what you can learn in the classroom. With your experence you should be able to pull in 100K+ a year if you go to the right area of the country. Boston and Baltimore are starting to become huge in this comp sci area. I would stay in the area you love and are good at and try to find a new company. There is much more demand for good DBAs then network due to the huge growth of e-commerece web sites. They are project to have even stronger growth over the next five years. Stick with the DBA and don't even take the certification.

   -Ben

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  This answer is courtesy of QuestionExchange.com   http://www.questionexchange.com/showUsenetGuest.jhtml?ans_id=8889&cus_id=USENET&qtn_id=7344 Received on Mon Dec 13 1999 - 09:40:33 CST