Re: Career questions: databases

From: Bruce C. Baker <bcb_at_undisclosedlocation.net>
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 14:00:45 -0500
Message-ID: <fRShi.18$Zt6.5@newsfe19.lga>

"DA Morgan" <damorgan_at_psoug.org> wrote in message news:1183316066.496682_at_bubbleator.drizzle.com...
> Bruce C. Baker wrote:

>> "DA Morgan" <damorgan_at_psoug.org> wrote in message 
>> news:1183301545.936378_at_bubbleator.drizzle.com...
>>> Neil wrote:
>>>> While agreeing with your point about resume fluff, in all fairness, the 
>>>> person claimed he was "proficient" in those technologies, not "expert" 
>>>> in them. At what point does one become "proficient"? That's a good 
>>>> question. But I don't think one needs to be able to field live 
>>>> questions from an audience of developers in order to call oneself 
>>>> "proficient."
>>>>
>>>> Neil
>>> I appreciate that but to me proficiency has a higher standard than,
>>> perhaps, for you. Would you call a DBA that writes shell scripts to
>>> back up 10g database proficient? I wouldn't.
>>>
>>> To quote:
>>> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/proficient
>>>
>>> pro·ficient·ly adv.
>>> Synonyms: proficient, adept, skilled, skillful, expert
>>> These adjectives mean having or showing knowledge, ability, or skill, as 
>>> in a profession or field of study. Proficient implies an advanced degree 
>>> of competence acquired through training:
>>>
>>> Note: "advanced degree of competence acquired through training"
>>
>> In the course of this thread we seem to have established at least two 
>> levels of DBA ability, i.e., "expert" and proficient", with proficient < 
>> expert. I'm sure there are all sorts of colorful names for those 
>> practitioners at the low end of the scale, but let's just call then 
>> "incompetent" for now. So we have
>>
>> incompetent < proficient < expert
>

> I'd disagree here in that there are a small percentage of people doing
> anything that are incompetent. But not being proficient does not make
> one incompetent. Perhaps a bit more granularity would help.

>

> incompetent < mediocre < average < good < proficient < expert

>

> Most people, in any field of endeavor are average. That is the meaning
> of the word.

>
>> What do we call DBAs who are somewhere between incompetent and 
>> proficient,
>

> See above.

>
>> and what would their qualifications be? In general, how many levels of 
>> DBA ability are there, and what does one have to know/be able to do to 
>> qualify for each of them?
>

> The incompetent DBA is not doing backups or not verifying that their
> backups can be used to restore and recover. The mediocre DBA is writing
> shell scripts to do backup and tested it once. The average DBA is using
> RMAN but doesn't really know the tool except to repeat, day after day,
> what they did the day before. The proficient DBA, like Sybrand for
> example, has knowledge of the underlying built-in packages and the
> tables storing metadata in the repository. The expert writes RMAN
> scripts, without the aide of websites or books, capable of making
> the tool sing and dance.
> --

/Exactly/ the sort of breakdown I was looking for! Thanks. Received on Sun Jul 01 2007 - 14:00:45 CDT