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If people ever start seeing you as “the database guy”, you’ll be pigeonholed into that slot as long as you remain in that team. Or maybe their manager was just

If people ever start seeing you as “the database guy”, you’ll be pigeonholed into that slot as long as you remain in that team. Or maybe their manager was just a really big fan of Oracle or something. I don’t know.

vjust 5y ago
Can confirm from experience. It took me years to shake that off and become known as a developer who could database. Its a function of whatever the team lacks. Once upon a time, DBA was a thing - I did manage to stay out of that deep pigeonhole luckily.
- bifrost 5y ago
  DBA is absolutely still a thing, they fix things that developers make that deal with databases :)
  - worthless-trash 5y ago
    From my limited interactions with DBA's.. they rarley did anything outside of the database other than tell the developers their queries were inefficient or deploy new tables/databases/upgrades. I understand my view on the DBA may be limited, but are you serious ? Have I been unlucky and only ran into this weird subcategory ?
    - InvaderFizz 5y ago
      No, you experienced the average DBA which is probably someone that started as a Junior SysAdmin, futzed around with databases, liked that they could silo into that and do nothing else. The problem is that that is basically where all advancement stopped for them. They learned SQL well enough, they might even know how to do transaction rollbacks, but god help you if you have a real systemic problem that takes detailed knowledge of the whole system to unwind and fix without major data loss. I'm in the process of trying to convince management to hire a real Postgres expert(both inside and outside the database), because we are currently on a bad, checkbook driven path that is moving tons of our managed RDS Postgres databases to self-managed (and poorly architected) clusters on another cloud. I have neither the time nor the inclination to become a deep Postgres expert.
jamil7 5y ago
Same with anything to do with ops or deployment - better to hide that knowledge.
- pacificmint 5y ago
  I used to work with a guy who was amazing with makefiles. After being burned once, ne made damn sure nobody at his new job knew about it.
  - pklausler 5y ago
    You know that you've matured in this business when you can feel no guilt when denying knowledge about something that you're an expert in.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Yeah, it sucks. I have strong opinions about how to improve our ops, and the knowledge/skills to do it, but there is no way I'm going to get stuck as being the ops guys.
- wyclif 5y ago
  Unless that's the job they hired you to do, and it's in your job title...
  - jamil7 5y ago
    That goes without saying doesn’t it?
  - busterarm 5y ago
    As a fulltime ops/deployment person, I haven't written any real software in over 4 years and long to go back to it. Of course I'm solving real and challenging problems, but the skills that got me here in the first place are dying on the vine. Also, on top of that, I'm "the cloud/networking/debugging guy" for about 150 engineers. It's annoying. I want to turn off Slack.
arthurjj 5y ago
Exactly. I was at one point an orgs "GDPR expert" which was fine work wise but not exactly what you want to be known for
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> you’ll be pigeonholed into that slot as long as you remain in that team That's a good thing: it gives you great leverage to ensure good retention-pay. ------- During your 1:1s/"connects"/perf-evals, don't frame it as "I hate being the only one here who knows SQL, I'm quitting/gimmie-a-raise", instead frame it as "I'm proud of the great accomplishments that my unique and deep understanding of both database-theory and SQL in-practice have brought to the company; given my significant responsibilities I now have in the team/company I'm sure you'll "recognize" my now quite-significant leading-role...." (for best effect make the "money-gesture" with your fingers during the last part). ...I wish I had the gall to do that when I was younger.
- glenda 5y ago
  But if you truly find it boring it’s still going to be difficult to frame it that way. Picking up too much work you don’t want to do can make you resent a job very quickly.
  - idiotsecant 5y ago
    Most of the world works at jobs that are repetitive, demeaning, dangerous, and insecure. And all that for the payoff of barely continuing to survive. It's truly a point of privilege to turn up your nose to a top 10% first world salary because shuffling things around in a database is distateful to your sensibilities .
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      And much of the world has food insecurity, but I still don't eat bananas...
  - ekkeke 5y ago
    idiotsecant, other people having worse jobs doesn't mean you should be happy with the same (or even better). Should we limit ourselves to be content with doing better than 90%? Where would the Torvalds, Stroustups, and Dijkstras come from then? Being pigeon holed into boring work just because you're "the guy" is crap, no matter how good the salary is. I quit my last job because of this, and would encourage anyone feeling the same to do so.

vjust 5y ago

Can confirm from experience. It took me years to shake that off and become known as a developer who could database. Its a function of whatever the team lacks. Once upon a time, DBA was a thing - I did manage to stay out of that deep pigeonhole luckily.

bifrost 5y ago
DBA is absolutely still a thing, they fix things that developers make that deal with databases :)
- worthless-trash 5y ago
  From my limited interactions with DBA's.. they rarley did anything outside of the database other than tell the developers their queries were inefficient or deploy new tables/databases/upgrades. I understand my view on the DBA may be limited, but are you serious ? Have I been unlucky and only ran into this weird subcategory ?
  - InvaderFizz 5y ago
    No, you experienced the average DBA which is probably someone that started as a Junior SysAdmin, futzed around with databases, liked that they could silo into that and do nothing else. The problem is that that is basically where all advancement stopped for them. They learned SQL well enough, they might even know how to do transaction rollbacks, but god help you if you have a real systemic problem that takes detailed knowledge of the whole system to unwind and fix without major data loss. I'm in the process of trying to convince management to hire a real Postgres expert(both inside and outside the database), because we are currently on a bad, checkbook driven path that is moving tons of our managed RDS Postgres databases to self-managed (and poorly architected) clusters on another cloud. I have neither the time nor the inclination to become a deep Postgres expert.

jamil7 5y ago

Same with anything to do with ops or deployment - better to hide that knowledge.

pacificmint 5y ago
I used to work with a guy who was amazing with makefiles. After being burned once, ne made damn sure nobody at his new job knew about it.
- pklausler 5y ago
  You know that you've matured in this business when you can feel no guilt when denying knowledge about something that you're an expert in.
dahfizz 5y ago
Yeah, it sucks. I have strong opinions about how to improve our ops, and the knowledge/skills to do it, but there is no way I'm going to get stuck as being the ops guys.
wyclif 5y ago
Unless that's the job they hired you to do, and it's in your job title...
- jamil7 5y ago
  That goes without saying doesn’t it?
- busterarm 5y ago
  As a fulltime ops/deployment person, I haven't written any real software in over 4 years and long to go back to it. Of course I'm solving real and challenging problems, but the skills that got me here in the first place are dying on the vine. Also, on top of that, I'm "the cloud/networking/debugging guy" for about 150 engineers. It's annoying. I want to turn off Slack.

arthurjj 5y ago

Exactly. I was at one point an orgs "GDPR expert" which was fine work wise but not exactly what you want to be known for

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago

> you’ll be pigeonholed into that slot as long as you remain in that team That's a good thing: it gives you great leverage to ensure good retention-pay. ------- During your 1:1s/"connects"/perf-evals, don't frame it as "I hate being the only one here who knows SQL, I'm quitting/gimmie-a-raise", instead frame it as "I'm proud of the great accomplishments that my unique and deep understanding of both database-theory and SQL in-practice have brought to the company; given my significant responsibilities I now have in the team/company I'm sure you'll "recognize" my now quite-significant leading-role...." (for best effect make the "money-gesture" with your fingers during the last part). ...I wish I had the gall to do that when I was younger.

glenda 5y ago
But if you truly find it boring it’s still going to be difficult to frame it that way. Picking up too much work you don’t want to do can make you resent a job very quickly.
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  Most of the world works at jobs that are repetitive, demeaning, dangerous, and insecure. And all that for the payoff of barely continuing to survive. It's truly a point of privilege to turn up your nose to a top 10% first world salary because shuffling things around in a database is distateful to your sensibilities .
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    And much of the world has food insecurity, but I still don't eat bananas...
- ekkeke 5y ago
  idiotsecant, other people having worse jobs doesn't mean you should be happy with the same (or even better). Should we limit ourselves to be content with doing better than 90%? Where would the Torvalds, Stroustups, and Dijkstras come from then? Being pigeon holed into boring work just because you're "the guy" is crap, no matter how good the salary is. I quit my last job because of this, and would encourage anyone feeling the same to do so.