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[jim_fields]

Hello all,
As a recently laid off hardware technician ( 3 times in as many years), I am looking for a career change. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statics, DBAs are in great demand and will continue to be in demand over the next couple of years. After researching the field some, it looks like there are many avenues to consider regarding schooling, acquiring skills in differing technologies and the such. What do you think is the best way to acquire the necessary skills and which ones?

[vsloathe]

It depends what sorts of fields you might be interested in. Certain DBMSes are used more often in certain types of industries. I am going to take a shot in the dark and say that the majority of DBAs pulling in the big bucks are Oracle or MS SQL DBAs.

I was a DBA, as well as a sysadmin for a little while. It was nice to get a taste of each - I could tell I wouldn't really like a career in either from the taste. I'm glad I found a profession like SEO.

[nutballs]

I agree, DBAs will be in demand for a long time. we are not producing any less data than yesterday, and its just going to keep getting worse until the singularity...

I agree with V. Oracle by default seems to be the highest paying, then msSQL, then mySQL. Of course there is all the weird ones that pay anywhere from retardedly high to retardedly low, depending on how many people could figure it out. The problem is that high pay comes with experience.

there tends to be a fairly steep payscale with DBAs usually, or at least there was, not really sure anymore.

my advice. pick 1, learn the ever loving shit out of it. then go sell your soul for a year to get experience. Databases are one of those trust things. The bigger it is, more scary it is to HR to hire a noob. To learn it, if you are book capable learner, buy a book, and set up a test rig. either rent online from a server company, or put together a box inhouse, aquire Windows server and SQL, and have at it.

[vsloathe]

Indeed. Oracle DBMSes are free to download and use for academic purposes for just this reason.

[perkiset]

I would offer that the traditional notion of the DBA has slid a bit towards the back - because of things like the Oracle database being able to grow by itself (. It used to be that the DBA was involved in scope and scale, making sure that the DB had enough room on the platters and such ... most of the more menial tasks that were "DBA" have become a either deprecated or completely eliminated.

My suggestion would be to become more involved with DB development and understand SQL more from the development side than just the administration side. NB and VS points are quite accurate that we're not producing any less data and there will be a need for people that understand - so rather even than focusing on a single DB, I'd suggest that you become strong in SQL and DB architecture & design - perhaps even getting good with ERDs and schema construction - so that your knowledge will be transportable to any of the contemporary databases.