Re: Career Advise - Database Management

>From what I have seen so far, it is really
>hard to move up in this industry unless you >have "specialized" skills.

The specialized skill for the growth part of DBA work is "development."  The classic DBA work is becoming automated, which means such things as performance tuning, coding strategies, architecture, planning etc., will be more important and perhaps done under different job classifications than DBA.

Traditionally QA has been underappreciated, but I've seen signs (ie, job ads) that that is changing. You might want to be sure you aren't just going through a "grass is greener" phase.

One usually gets hired for specific demonstrated skills, the certification stuff is window dressing (with some exceptions, and I agree with the book smarts comment - but agree more with Daniel). Lots more dev jobs for recent grads, by the time you have enough experience to be a DBA things may be different. Of course, many DBA's just fell into it, for good or ill.

jg

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