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> this role is actually outsourced in most organizations Or in-sourced to developers. In places I've worked it was a developer's responsibility to ensure that

> this role is actually outsourced in most organizations Or in-sourced to developers. In places I've worked it was a developer's responsibility to ensure that a DB is used properly. None of them knew the DB good enough (they need to write code and have no time to read DB docs) so the result was mixed at best.

amarant 4y ago
This is my experience as well, I spent a few years complaining that my colleagues didn't know their database well enough, and it was causing unnecessary bugs and poor performance. I wanted the company to pay for some basic courses on the databases we were using, especially for the more junior Devs. Instead we switched database like 11 times and now I don't know the database either. The bugs and poor performance lingers though.
dspillett 4y ago
> Or in-sourced to developers. Particularly in places with dedicated DevOps people. It is common for DBA work to be split between infrastructure and dev teams, without a dedicated DBA though perhaps with one or more particular devs acting as a local database “expert”. In a well run organisation those teams will communicate well, how often this works so smoothly in practise I'll leave as an exercise for the reader to investigate!
niklasrde 4y ago
Same at my previous role - we did have some people who were really good at some point, and into DBs. We had a very solid Redis and PostgreSQL set-up, and some advanced stuff for simple data in Redis - but once that knowledge fades with attrition, making space for continued personal development into how two very different DBMS work for a small team is not easy, and it just stays untouched, disliked, and somewhat abandoned forever more.
datavirtue 4y ago
Yeah, everybody thinks that their cloud database dujour has them covered. Then by accident they learn that it was not automatically "highly available" and that they need to restore from backup...yesterday's backup...and yes, the laws of physics still apply (the database doesn't index itself). There are a staggering amount of configurations resulting in a number of states, most of which are not desirable for anything beyond the dev environment. Senior devs think you're a fucking wizard if you understand 20% of it. Scary.

amarant 4y ago

This is my experience as well, I spent a few years complaining that my colleagues didn't know their database well enough, and it was causing unnecessary bugs and poor performance. I wanted the company to pay for some basic courses on the databases we were using, especially for the more junior Devs. Instead we switched database like 11 times and now I don't know the database either. The bugs and poor performance lingers though.

dspillett 4y ago

> Or in-sourced to developers. Particularly in places with dedicated DevOps people. It is common for DBA work to be split between infrastructure and dev teams, without a dedicated DBA though perhaps with one or more particular devs acting as a local database “expert”. In a well run organisation those teams will communicate well, how often this works so smoothly in practise I'll leave as an exercise for the reader to investigate!

niklasrde 4y ago

Same at my previous role - we did have some people who were really good at some point, and into DBs. We had a very solid Redis and PostgreSQL set-up, and some advanced stuff for simple data in Redis - but once that knowledge fades with attrition, making space for continued personal development into how two very different DBMS work for a small team is not easy, and it just stays untouched, disliked, and somewhat abandoned forever more.

datavirtue 4y ago

Yeah, everybody thinks that their cloud database dujour has them covered. Then by accident they learn that it was not automatically "highly available" and that they need to restore from backup...yesterday's backup...and yes, the laws of physics still apply (the database doesn't index itself). There are a staggering amount of configurations resulting in a number of states, most of which are not desirable for anything beyond the dev environment. Senior devs think you're a fucking wizard if you understand 20% of it. Scary.