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Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?

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Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?

#11

Post by beefield »

seneca wrote: post #8

You need to look objectively at her skill set and desires. She has a legacy skillset on an unpopular technology, and doesn't want to grow away from it. That's fine, but it's not very marketable. Ask yourself, who would find enough value in this skillset and constraints to pay for it? That's who you need to target. My guess: It's going to be largely non-tech and traditional companies, probably. You're looking for bank…

Legacy? Unpopular? Can you elaborate a bit more. To my understanding all the rumors of SQL dying have been a bit premature so far.

Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?

#13

Post by browningstreet »

bellkoan wrote: post #7

Banks have a lot of data analyst type jobs that could be good for this. They require a knowledge of SQL to generate reports but do not fall squarely under IT and so would rarely expect those kinds of project work.

Having worked in banks, the demand for data architects and data analysts is not overly tech specific.

Also: an AWS data or Snowflake certification will help tremendously.

Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?

#15

Post by wendyshu »

beefield wrote: post #11
seneca wrote: post #8

You need to look objectively at her skill set and desires. She has a legacy skillset on an unpopular technology, and doesn't want to grow away from it. That's fine, but it's not very marketable. Ask yourself, who would find enough value in this skillset and constraints to pay for it? That's who you need to target. My guess: It's going to be largely non-tech and traditional companies, probably. You're looking for bank…

Legacy? Unpopular? Can you elaborate a bit more. To my understanding all the rumors of SQL dying have been a bit premature so far.

I think the reference is to Oracle, not SQL in general

Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?

#16

Post by lopatin »

bellkoan wrote: post #7

Banks have a lot of data analyst type jobs that could be good for this. They require a knowledge of SQL to generate reports but do not fall squarely under IT and so would rarely expect those kinds of project work.

That's a good idea. She knows finance/markets stuff too. I guess I thought banks had kind of cut throat cultures, but I agree that it's not necessarily like that in all departments. We'll for sure check out analyst positions at some of the banks.

Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?

#17

Post by rastignack »

beefield wrote: post #11
seneca wrote: post #8

You need to look objectively at her skill set and desires. She has a legacy skillset on an unpopular technology, and doesn't want to grow away from it. That's fine, but it's not very marketable. Ask yourself, who would find enough value in this skillset and constraints to pay for it? That's who you need to target. My guess: It's going to be largely non-tech and traditional companies, probably. You're looking for bank…

Legacy? Unpopular? Can you elaborate a bit more. To my understanding all the rumors of SQL dying have been a bit premature so far.

Oracle DB is really less and less popular. Oracle DBAs are worried. They know they are like COBOL devs.

Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?

#18

Post by lopatin »

wendyshu wrote: post #15
beefield wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legacy? Unpopular? Can you elaborate a bit more. To my understanding all the rumors of SQL dying have been a bit premature so far.

I think the reference is to Oracle, not SQL in general

I should clarify that she would be able to pick up MySQL or Postgres without too much trouble.

Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?

#19

Post by foota »

runnerup wrote: post #12

Universities use a lot of OracleSQL (almost all of them), are generally very accepting of older workers and have a working environment that is friendly to aging workers. The salaries aren't excellent but the comfort is high.

Funny enough, my time in university tech as a student said the same thing. I was going to say either that or state/federal.

Hello Banner my old friend to the tune of The Sound of Silence

Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?

#20

Post by doorhammer »

I was primarily a SQL Server dev and worked in an analytics department supporting homedepot.com call centers. I personally did about half and half application work in C# and the kind of query writing/analysis/optimization you're talking about. It was stable, paid okay, and I was working with a good team (which can be a crapshoot obviously).

I'd personally look for stuff like that out of focused tech companies.

Otherwise I think meetups are a fantastic idea, especially when it comes to greasing the wheels around whatever trendy interview practices are going on that week and being able to personalize the context around wanting to stick with Oracle.

Just off-the-top spit-balling, but things like workforce management, analytics, etc are the kinds of things I'd start with.

I also did project based consulting on small teams for about five years and Oracle is all over the place in non-tech industry, so I wouldn't despair on that front. I'm not sure what the market is for that kind of job, but it's so fundamentally woven into the fabric of a lot of F500 and similar companies that it's not going away soon--even if some of them would prefer it to.

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