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Getting a job as an Oracle DBA
Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting
January 7, 2010 |
How to
get your dream job as an Oracle professional
If you look at the help
wanted ads, Oracle DBA jobs look very appealing with salaries that rival
engineers and other professionals, with starting salaries as high as $85,000
with senior Oracle DBA’s commonly earning over $130,000 per year with
Oracle superstars earning over a quarter
million dollars a year.
Oracle Corporation recently
published their
2009 Oracle salary survey which shows an
average
2009 DBA salary of $97,000 with the highest
salaries in large cities.
Why such high salaries for
Oracle professionals? It’s due
to several factors:
·
Oracle DBA’s manage databases that are worth billions of dollars.
Along with high responsibility comes high pay.
·
Oracle is the world’s most robust and flexible database.
It can take years to learn all of the nuances of Oracle.
The salary survey also shows
that experience counts, and experience and job responsibility makes the most
difference in salary:
|
North
America Salaries
|
0 to 2 years
|
3-4 years
|
5-10 years
|
10+ years
|
|
Administrator
|
$85,094.33
|
$81,443.10
|
$94,778.43
|
$108,183.30
|
|
Analyst
|
$69,684.21
|
$71,066.84
|
$73,762.22
|
$93,254.00
|
|
Architect
|
$89,181.82
|
$103,189.47
|
$117,285.71
|
$130,933.33
|
|
Consultant
|
$97,233.76
|
$87,142.86
|
$114,559.08
|
$119,042.55
|
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Developer
|
$71,343.72
|
$81,875.00
|
$91,117.50
|
$94,540.92
|
|
Functional implementer
|
$71,666.67
|
$72,500.00
|
$87,600.00
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$120,166.67
|
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Other
|
$75,933.33
|
$102,698.90
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$105,562.50
|
$85,142.86
|
|
|
Source: Oracle Corporation
As a general guideline, a
well-qualified Oracle professional (master degree) will
earn
age times three, so a 30 year old Oracle
professional can expect, on average, at least $90,000 per year.
Before we continue, a
reality check is in-order. No
company is going to pay you top-dollar as a junior Oracle professional
unless you have demonstrated a commitment to professional database
management. This is usually via extensive college coursework.
If you do not possess a at
least a bachelors degree in Software Engineering, Information Systems, or
Computer Science, you will find it very hard to get a job using Oracle in
this recession. It’s even
tougher to land a job working for Oracle Corporation because Oracle
hires from top-tier universities, choosing the best and the brightest
from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and MIT.
As the global recession
continues into 2010, it’s interesting that the market for experienced Oracle
professionals is stronger than ever, but it’s important to understand that
Oracle has a two-tiered job market:
·
Oracle professionals
– These are college-trained professionals with advanced college degrees in
engineering, computer science, business administration, or information
systems. This is the tier of
Oracle professionals with the most responsibility for data integrity and
security, the DBA’s of the Fortune 500 companies.
·
Oracle laymen
– When the market expands beyond the ability for well-qualified
professionals, tradesmen enter the Oracle job market to fill lower level
Oracle jobs. These are the
graduates of two-year community colleges who fill lower-level Oracle jobs
that are characterized by repetitive, well-structured Oracle tasks.
The market for Oracle jobs
ebbs and flows, and during downtimes, it’s the non-professional class of
Oracle workers get hit the hardest.
As Oracle shops face tighter budgets, more and more companies abandon
their in-house Oracle staff and use remote DBA services where they pay only
for the actual time that is used.
We are also seeing the trend
towards server consolidation playing a role in the Oracle job market.
As companies move dozens of instances onto single monolithic servers,
less DBA staff is required and the surviving DBAs need to manage schema
design, security, and other mission-critical data management tasks.
Let’s take a look at how
Oracle people are working hard to keep their jobs in this super-competitive
market.
Getting your Oracle Dream job
While the recession is
hurting American industry, academia is flourishing as more and more people
return to college to sharpen their skills.
Graduating IT and computer science majors are becoming pragmatic,
taking practical courses that can help them get a job in this
super-competitive market.
Many graduating computer
scientists mistakenly believe that the Oracle DBA skills are purely
technical and they are surprised to find that their technical savvy is not
enough to land an Oracle job.
Compared to the costs of
training at Oracle University which can cost more than $500 per day, college
tuition is a great bargain, but you have to know what courses are best to
prepare you for a career as a DBA.
BEWARE!
There are many fourth-tier unaccredited colleges that claim to offer Oracle
related training. These are
rarely s bargain, and a good State University is always a better choice.
There are also many
Oracle training scams, preying upon Oracle wannabees.
In reality, the Oracle DBA
must be an "ace" of all IT functions, because a DBA is the custodian of the
mission critical data, the life blood of a large corporation.
They have the ultimate responsibility for the safety of the data as
well as the database design, implementation, backup and recovery.
An Oracle developer is also
not purely technical since a coder must have the ability to understand the
application architecture and enough communications skills to be able to
properly implement a program from written specifications.
Remember, technical knowledge of Oracle is only a small part of the
job of an Oracle DBA. Of
course, a DBA must have skills in operating systems, Information Systems and
computer science theory, but they must also have sound business and
communications skills. That is
why employers like to hire Oracle DBAs who also have skills in computer
science, information systems, or business administration.
But how does somebody
sharpen their skills in become an Oracle professional?
Traditionally, Oracle technology is the stuff of vocational schools,
and any vendor product is not considered to be worthy college-level
learning.
Let’s take a look at
specific college courses that will make you more marketable:
Business & Information System courses
For business courses, I
recommend only taking courses from an AACSB accredited business school.
While moist major universities business programs are AACSB
accredited, beware of the less-than stellar business schools which are
expensive should be avoided.
Information Systems courses are taught within the business colleges and they
have a complete program to train aspiring Oracle professionals:
·
Database Management
– This is an upper division courses on relational database management, and
many AACSB schools will use Oracle for the course homework.
·
Business communications
- Excellent communications are equally important, and college-level English
skills are an absolute requirement.
·
Systems Analysis
– This is a great course on the systems development life cycle and the job
of the system analyst in a database environment.
·
Functional management
– Knowledge
of accounting, finance and HR can be a real benefit for an Oracle
Applications DBA.
Computer Science courses
For technical coursework,
resist the temptation to spend your time with a fly by night program and
seek out the major universities.
They offer evening courses in computer science, programming and
engineering, real skills that can make you more marketable in a tough
recession. For IT and
engineering majors, sharpening your skills in basic computer science can
give you the edge in the Oracle market:
·
Algorithms
– This is a
must take course for any Oracle DBA because it covers the software
engineering foundations upon which the Oracle engine is built.
·
Data Structures
– Training in data structures makes you familiar with the techniques used
for Oracle sorting, indexing and other Oracle internal constructs.
·
Programming
– I like to hire entry-level Oracle professionals who have taken at least
two programming courses.
In sum, even though the
recession has cut-deep into the IT budgets, companies are choosing not to
skimp on the people who manage their mission-critical databases.
The old saying “There is
always room at the top” remains true for aspiring Oracle professionals.
Those who distinguish themselves by graduating from competitive
universities and those who supplement their bachelor’s degrees with
additional coursework are finding it much easier to get their Oracle dream
job in this tough economy.
For more information, see my
book
The Oracle Job Interview Handbook by Rampant TechPress, and see my
online notes on getting an Oracle job:
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