[flagged]
You can be someone’s mom without being “an elder”.
Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
21–30 of 128 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
#22You 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…
Ignore the above 100%. Saying SQL is unpopular is completely out of touch with the reality of how business works.
Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
#23https://usds.gov/apply (not tour of duty roles in DC, remote analyst or 18F)
Slower pace but remote available and very much in demand. Should carry your Mom through to retirement. Hope it helps.
Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
#24Banks 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.
Stick to consumer banks, they're laid back. Investment banks or asset managers tend to be more cutthroat.
Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
#25[flagged]
I have many family members who lived in socialist societies, there was a lot less dignity for everyone involved. Please keep your political beliefs out of this discussion.
Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
#26Universities 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
State and federal tend to use MS SQL, but I guess some federal agencies have the budget for oracle
Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
#27[flagged]
It hasn't been my experience that banks do the Google-style interviews for roles outside of the formal IT organization. I've held both dev and non-dev roles and I only ever encountered algo interviews for the former.
I was at an IBM subsidiary for awhile. My boss's technical question consisted of, "Do you know sql?"
The jobs are out there. Mortgage servicing analysts basically just write reports in sql from my experience. Healthcare analysts can be very similar.
Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
#28Earlier 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.
Oracle DB is really less and less popular. Oracle DBAs are worried. They know they are like COBOL devs.
It may be less popular for new projects, but every single project/product/service that's using Oracle DB is gonna continue to use, and hire, Oracle DBA for the foreseeable future.
Sure, if you're learning SQL or a technology to market yourself, Oracle DB might not be the best time investment. However, if you're already an expert in that, you shouldn't have trouble finding a role somewhere.
Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
#29My primary searches would be for something like Reporting Developer, Reporting Analyst, Report Writer, Business Analyst (for a very established business where most of the responsibilities are actually getting stuff out of a database).
I would be looking at small to medium businesses that have been around for awhile, many of them have "legacy" databases that nobody knows how to query, and someone conversant in SQL would have no big problem breaking down.
The breathless ones going on about their cloud migrations are ones to avoid.
Re: Ask HN: How can my mom downshift as a SQL developer?
#30Focus on industries in which she has domain expertise.
Use her analytical skills to write data-backed reports. She could even do this freelance.
Overall I would suggest finding positions where SQL is used but not the entirety of the job description, otherwise she will not be able to differentiate herself from the competition.