Interested in Database Administration--Any Advice?

1. It sounds like your interests are more in line with data modeling than database administration. I'm a database administrator and the only time I do anything related to the actual data in the databases I'm responsible for is when the application people can't figure out how to do something themselves. Most of my work involves working on problems (e.g., "Hey, why is my inefficient SQL code that I wrote with no input from you whatsoever running so slowly? I'm only trying to join 17 tables with 1,000,000,000 rows each on non-indexed fields on a machine with one processor and 512 MB of memory. You have to fix this immediately even though it's 3 am.") and projects. The entry-level DBA work (e.g., maintenance, schema changes) is sent offshore at my company. 2. You probably don't need to go back to school for an IT-related degree, but it wouldn't hurt to get some certifications. If I were you, I'd focus on either MS SQL or Oracle because they're so widely used and then I'd familiarize myself with other RDBMSes, like Teradata (my company is pretty much constantly looking for people who know Teradata) or UDB. 3. I agree with bfranklin. I disagree that getting a helpdesk type job will be of much use in transitioning into a DBA role. I started out as an application programmer, during which I worked on the conversion of my application's database from Sybase to MS SQL. While working on that project, I took a special interest in the database portion of the project and became the informal database expert on my team. I also made friends with our DBA, which opened the door to my transitioning into the database administration group at my company. Now for some unsolicited advice that my DBA friend gave me (that I ignored) when I was talking to him about moving into database administration. Don't do it! It's pretty thankless most of the time.

1. A http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/database_administrator_job_description.jsp sounds pretty much like what you're describing. Building the front-end applications that interact with databases is usually the realm of programmers though, so you probably wouldn't get to do much of that. You typically expect to see DBAs working in large enterprises in situations where the scale and complexity of database use demands specialist knowledge of a particular database platform. 2. Probably, although you may be able to do it via self-study and just paying to sit the exams (for instance if you wanted to be a Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA)). In the absence of a strong employment history in the field, specific qualifications are the next best thing, especially since the most likely employers will be large and corporate. 3. If it's an area of work that you feel you'll genuinely enjoy, go for it. But don't expect to be able to apply for any jobs just yet.

3) It's easier to become a DBA at a company where you are already employed. If your current company doesn't have DBAs, make the transition now to a company that has plenty of DBA openings. Then get your certs, make friends in that department, and transition in to the bottom rung of the DBA team.

Database administrator is a pretty specialized and technical job. A lot of it consists of knowing the details of how to optimize a particular brand of database (e.g. Oracle or SQL Server). For instance, how to set up indexes correctly so that data can be retrieved quickly, how to set up locking so that two users can't try to modify the same piece of data, "normalizing" a database to make sure that the data can't be set up in inconsistent ways, setting up replication and load-balancing so that the same data is present in multiple computers to cope with heavy demand, backing up the data safely without slowing the system down while you do it. It's not really something you can just pick up as you go along. It's also not enough to be an organized and methodical person, you have to know in some detail how the databases (and computers) actually work. I think most employers would expect a database administrator to have a degree in Computer Science or IT, or previous experience. Something like helpdesk support, or more general system administration might be easier to get into. A lot of user problems are pretty similar, so relatively short training courses mean you can get useful quite quickly.

Just know that it's a long process to becoming a DBA. Not quite as long as becoming a programmer, but there's still a tremendous amount to learn. My first DB project was a recipe database in PostgreSQL (a free and very good DBMS). Obviously pretty trivial, but I learned a ton. Once you've done that you could think about switching to one of the big commercial databases, most of which you can get a license to experiment with for free or cheap. Big university CS departments probably won't have the kind of intro to actually using a database that you're looking for (I know mine doesn't). It may be more of a community college kind of subject. At a university you can take classes in the theory of database systems, database optimization, spatial databases, etc. All of which would be good to know, but not a good place to start. Each of the DBMS vendors offers certification courses. I don't know anyone who's taken these courses, but it's worth investigating.

I wouldn't say that your description matches the DBAs at this large state government agency. Our DBA spends most of his day patching and fine tuning the servers and software that run the databases. For smaller projects, the programmers create their own database schemas, deciding on the organization of the data in columns and tables. For bigger projects, we have a data analyst who specializes in big data mapping and the like. If you don't care for the programming side, you might consider working on your query skills and learning something like Crystal Reports or its many competitors. There are quite a few jobs in business reporting and it's more about queries and data than programming.

Your desired career path sounds a lot like what I backed into by accident, in some ways. I had a liberal arts BA, learned a bit about databases, took a community college course in databases and one in programming, and self-taught from there. Then I found a small travel company with big needs advertising for a temp position, and talked myself into a permanent job. They were patient enough to allow me to learn on the job so that I gradually became capable of more and more complex things. I get the impression that most people in this line of work do the school->certification->corporate employer thing, but I'm glad I didn't have to. Clearly, there are things that a full-on DBA knows that I don't know, but one need not be a DBA to have a job using databases and programming skills. On the other hand, I think it takes a lot of luck to find that magical first job in the field, especially in this economy.The school->certification->corporate employer track is more expensive and may be more of a disruption to your lifestyle, but it would undoubtedly be faster and probably more lucrative in the long run. If you try to go this route, it might be helpful to build up your experience by volunteering with non-profits until your resume is a little more compelling.

Go for it. Great DBA's get paid a ton of money and have very rewarding careers. Read about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization. If the data normalization stuff is interesting to you, then you will probably have the makings of a DBA. As mentioned above, also look into the No-SQL / Big Data stuff. Another angle you could take is Business Intelligence / Data Warehousing. That involves looking at huge, disparate sets of data and making sense of it all. Read all about it in this http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15579717 of the Economist. These guys work closely with DBA's.

On review, seconding was Maisle said. You may be more interested in Data Modeling, although depending on the size of the environment, you may do one or both.