Career

Category: career

What the Decline of SQL Server Quality Means for Developers and DBAs

What the Decline of SQL Server Quality Means for Developers and DBAs

‘Is it just me, or is SQL Server quality slipping?’

I asked myself that question for couple/few years until I faced up to it: SQL Server is well into a period where Microsoft investment is waning, and Microsoft regularly isn’t able to deliver the features they promise.

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Top 5 Toxic Flavors of Tech Execs

Top 5 Toxic Flavors of Tech Execs

By Kendra Little on April 11, 2024

Category: career

I’ve been an employee at small, medium, and large companies, and I’ve also been a short-term consultant working with a new company in any given week. I’ve worked with hundreds of tech companies remotely and have visited companies onsite on multiple continents.

Air-dropping into company cultures to work through problems with teams and present recommendations to their leadership reveals common anti-patterns in leadership – plus some patterns that make teams raving fans of their management.

Here’s the top 5 Toxic Flavors of Tech Execs I’ve encountered over 20 years, plus the Top 5 Team Building Tech Execs I’ve found, too.

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Something Weird Happened: I Love My Job Again

Something Weird Happened: I Love My Job Again

By Kendra Little on March 26, 2024

Category: career

Back in my 20’s, I was lucky enough to go to graduate school. I had a work-study job in the Dean’s office where I got to develop and administer their Access databases, which helped me get by.

One day, the Dean said to me: ‘Kendra, when you talk about your work on our databases, you light up. When you talk about your coursework, that doesn’t happen. Have you thought about that?’

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Dear SQL DBA - Advice for Technical Leaders with Alex Robson

Dear SQL DBA - Advice for Technical Leaders with Alex Robson

By Kendra Little on August 31, 2023

Category: career

Ever wondered what it’s like to be a VP or Director of Engineering? I chatted with Alex Robson about leadership in technology, what you can get out of coaching or an MBA program (should you be interested), and what makes a high performing team.

Alex’s site and blog: https://robsonconsulting.services

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What To Do When They Are Sure It Was The Database... All The Time

What To Do When They Are Sure It Was The Database... All The Time

It can be tiring to have the database constantly be the Prime Suspect for performance problems.

I’ve had many variations of this conversation over the years:

“Something happened, and we’re pretty sure it was the database. Again.”

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Dear SQL DBA: Tech Interviews in 2023 With Jeremiah Peschka

Dear SQL DBA: Tech Interviews in 2023 With Jeremiah Peschka

By Kendra Little on August 11, 2023

Category: career

Tech interviews are weird and wacky. How did they get this way, and how SHOULD they be? Jeremiah Peschka joins us to discuss.

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Dear SQL DBA - Data Roles: DBA, DBRE, and Data Engineer

Dear SQL DBA - Data Roles: DBA, DBRE, and Data Engineer

There are lots of jobs for data folks. In this episode, I discuss three hot job titles: Database Administrator (DBA), Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE), and Data Engineer (DE).

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