My experiences breaking into the business

I have been in the business about 18 months and I live in Northern Virginia. This is one of the biggest Oracle Markets in the world. It was a long hall. I do not have a CIS or an MIS. All I had was a class in Oracle Development. It was a good class, but they were not honest about how difficult it was to get into the business.

It took me 4,000 resumes around the whole country to get my first job and I hated it. I was not treated well at all. I then landed a full development life cycle job working on a terrific project at GRCI... however, the client dragged its feet and we did not get our funding continued... Now Im on a maintenance job/ new development using Web forms and UNIX.

Here are some of my opinions.

1. The economy is really weak. Unless you have a security clearance or have fundamental functional knowledge in one of the Oracle Applications(Financial, HR, Manufacturing) it is VERY, VERY tight for junior people.
2. Most people who come out of class and school are absolutely and completely incompetent. They know absolutely nothing and are worthless. So for those of us who do know something, its tough to prove it.
3. Most people in this business, regardless of experience should be bagging groceries. I have been doing this for 18 months and I work with people that have up to 7 years with forms and 30+ years programming and I am hands down the best one on the team. I have met people with senior level experience that cannot even write a package, have horrible debugging concepts, and never read the literature and learn new things. So once you get some experience, it does not take much at all to be amongst the best people out there. Hard part is getting in the door. Im not any smarter than anyone else. I just read the documentation, books, white papers, message boards and I try to figure exactly what Oracle is doing when I do this(this is essential for bug fixing).
4. DBA's can often make the switch back to developer, however, DBA's make more money in the long run than straight developers. The good thing about a DBA is they have a fundamental understanding of how an RDBMS works. How to tune queries, how the SGA works, etc... Very few developers know this. Problem with Informix is getting PL/SQL experience. However, PL/SQL is a VERY forgiving language and very easy to use if you know other languages.
5. Some things that might help. OCP definitely helps some. Experience is #1, but many companies, especially ones with government clients, like to see it. Also, you can make BIG BUCKS as an Oracle Instructor and you have to be certified to get those jobs(Anteon suposedly pays instructors $200/hour). I also recommend publishing. Im going to try my hand in that in the next few months. Ive been told that that is huge in terms of dollars and opportunity. You dont have to come up with anything revolutionary, just read what is out there...
6. Id say stick with your job for now and start looking when the economy picks up. Get as much free training as possible and put it on your resume. Often times, if a DBA desires it, they can help with development. Try to do this. I know its not Oracle and not PL/SQL, but its not that bad. Hopefully, the economy will pick up by the end of the year. You can get all the major developer software from Oracle for $40 or so. Get it and do it at home. Build your own application. Just use the demo or scott/tiger schema or extract some tables and data from work and do it in Oracle. The Oracle demo has some really neat stuff in it that most people dont know. You can download the demo from OTN.
7. Good books that I recommend... Tom Kyte(Oracle Expert One on One), Dorsey and Koetzke(Advanced Forms and Reports), Fuerstein(Advanced PL/SQL Programming with Packages). Try to have a fundamental understand of Forms(see the interview questions in the back of the Dorsey book), reports is not that imporant, try to pick up Designer to a lesser degree as a developer. Designer is a big and complex tool. Alot of the cooler projects use it though so learn how to Generate Forms and use the Table API(most designer books suck, so look for the thinnest one).
8. Ask tons of questions on OTN, ODTUG, and here. Read the Oracle Documentation. There is ALOT of stuff in there that most people dont know. Id say that 2/3s of all developers dont realize how much bind variables improve performs and/or why it does this. Learn how to tune a query using an explain plan and the Oracle optimizer(good interviewers love that), learn about Updateable Views and Instead of Triggers(this is not complicated, but VERY useful and very few developers know that they even exist.. see the explanation in the Dorsey book). There is also some good free stuff in Oracle Professional(I forgot the link.. its an online newsletter). Go to revealnet.com and read the pipeline.
9. Also, learn how to use libraries and why they are important(I know guys with 10 years in who cant do this and its pretty easy). I try to pick up 1-2 tidbits a day and improve my skills a little at a time.
10. Im putting all this in here because you are a DBA. I have alot of respect for good DBAs and if you have a fundamental understanding of the database, development is much easier. Just bide your time, when the economy picks up you can move back over.

Ryan Gaffuri
Staff Consultant
Bloodworth Integrated Technology

"Samantha" <samanthakaya_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:7bd5ec56.0202120808.24869084_at_posting.google.com...
> Hey everyone...I wasn't sure where to post this so I am trying my
> question here. I graduated in the fall of 2000 with an MIS degree.
> Unlike many of the other graduates I knew what kind of job that I
> wanted. I wanted to be an Oracle Developer. Problem is finding a job.
> Since graduation I had a job as an Oracle DBA for a really small
> company that collapsed and now I'm an Informix DBA for a company that
> saw something in me. Problem is I'm not enjoying the DBA side of
> databases. So I've come here for your advice. I'm considering either a
> career move to law or to finish up my OCP and try to find a job as an
> Oracle Developer. Will having an OCP prove to employers that I know my
> stuff. It seems like they want experience but I can't get experience
> if I don't have a job doing that. The only experience I have are
> projects that I worked on for classes. As you all can tell I'm very
> confused. I really need to know what you all love and hate about being
> an Oracle Developer. Also I know salaries vary depending on experience
> and location but what kind of salaries have you noticed going for an
> Oracle Developer position. Any help would be appreciated.
>
> -Samantha
Received on Sat Feb 16 2002 - 14:54:06 CET