Database Administrator vs Software Developer

Kabnis

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Which has a better long-term future? From what I've been hearing, developers are usually the first to be outsourced.
 

Kabnis

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Which has a better long-term future? From what I've been hearing, developers are usually the first to be outsourced.
Also between web developer and data science, which has more secure employment? While data science may be the hot topic of the past few years, the number of jobs aren't as plentiful as web development. The data science roles themselves are pretty interesting and the pay is amazing...but the competition to get these jobs are fierce and even though a PhD isn't required, you will be facing off against other applicants with PhDs in quantitative fields. I was hoping someone in the industry here could either confirm or deny what I've written so far. My background btw is chem engineer looking to make a switch.
 

Obreh Winfrey

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I'm fairly certain the futures for both will be pretty stable although the market will become saturated with developers over the next decade. I don't think you should be that concerned with outsourcing.

Web dev should also be stable; there's a lot of new web technologies being developed and companies probably haven't made the switch to Angular, React, Vue, etc. Everything is moving towards web, evident by the amount of web dev positions out there. Developers with JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and PHP should be set.

In the grand scheme of things I personally think it's smarter to plot a course away from day-to-day developing. Get into the business side of things so you can be a manager or something like that. With the personality of some developers they seem content to just be a code monkey with no larger aspirations. That opens up space higher up on companies where you can still be involved in technology but shouldn't have to concern yourself with becoming outdated.
 

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Both have great growth potentials if you are good at it. There may be fewer DBA positions though.
 

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I love data :ahh: Just put in a request for WinSQL

I think data is the way to go. Big business = big data, all the time. Web on the other hand seems more choppy; companies do have a good amount of web stuff going, but it's not steady. You combine data with anything- finance, economics, applied math, healthcare, computer science- you become a huge asset. I have been able to make huge career moves over the last few years on the strengfh of data
 

Kabnis

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I love data :ahh: Just put in a request for WinSQL

I think data is the way to go. Big business = big data, all the time. Web on the other hand seems more choppy; companies do have a good amount of web stuff going, but it's not steady. You combine data with anything- finance, economics, applied math, healthcare, computer science- you become a huge asset. I have been able to make huge career moves over the last few years on the strengfh of data
What is skill set is needed for data science?
 

kevm3

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Data science, database administration and the web are stable careers if you're competent. Every company has to process some data in some form or fashion, so obviously you can get paid doing data science or database administration(DBAS). Just to be clear, database administration and data science are two different things. DBAS oversee the company's database/databases. Data science is more about processing and analyzing data. They can overlap to some extent, but they are two different jobs. Data scientists focus more on analyzing the data retrieved from the database.Data Science is more mathematics oriented, specifically statistics, than the typical web career, so if you don't like math, you probably don't want to go that direction. On the other hand, just about all companies are moving things to the web and if you are skilled at what you do, you can be paid handsomely.

If you are mediocre, then yes, you can be easily replaced in all three of those fields. Can web development be outsourced and can the field be unstable? Sure, but a company will find it very difficult, especially smaller companies, to let go of a highly competent web developer and ship everything to India or some other country. Why? Because of communication issues, time zone issues, and it can a lot more difficult for the owner to get the changes he wants do to some of the aforementioned issues. If you are the guy who pretty much controls the front end or the back end, then it's going to be hard to fire you.

It will also be hard to get in the door because bootcamps and the such are flooding the market with candidates at the lower end. That's why I'm recommending that you choose something that you really enjoy, because you will have to end up separating yourself from the pack. Most jobs in the industry want something like 3 to 5 or more years of experience and a long list of requirements. Find out which one you can spend your free time outside of work learning about and enjoying.
 

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if you’re looking for diversity - software developer

If you’re looking for stability - database admin

Disclaimer: Am a software developer
 

Kabnis

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if you’re looking for diversity - software developer

If you’re looking for stability - database admin

Disclaimer: Am a software developer
Wouldn't database admin be less stable due to shyt moving to the cloud?
 

FSP

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Wouldn't database admin be less stable due to shyt moving to the cloud?
Short answer, no

“cloud” is a nebulous term. It’s just someone else’s computer. You still need people managing your local infrastructure, which you need to have regardless. Kind of like how Dropbox is a great tool but it still won’t fully replace the usefulness of a local private hard drive. A lot of companies have their own internal solution anyways. And you would still need that person to manage the data that goes to and from the cloud, the database design itself and controlling user permissions. Plenty of things to do
 
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I love data :ahh: Just put in a request for WinSQL

I think data is the way to go. Big business = big data, all the time. Web on the other hand seems more choppy; companies do have a good amount of web stuff going, but it's not steady. You combine data with anything- finance, economics, applied math, healthcare, computer science- you become a huge asset. I have been able to make huge career moves over the last few years on the strengfh of data
:lupe: can you explain what you do. Data science looks kind of interesting to me.
 

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:lupe: can you explain what you do. Data science looks kind of interesting to me.
Data science is its own animal. Heavy on machine learning, statistics, modeling etc. You would need a good stats background to get into that

I manage a competitive index for a retailer. So I get weekly feeds from inside the company and our competitors, and I build reports to explain where we are in the market. It's quasi big data because I'm looking at prices on ~40K items across 2 dozen regions every week. So they brought me on board to help streamline the process and enable them to get a historic and interactive look, rather than just looking week to week. That's really the point of getting into data... a lot of companies and departments have a shytload of data, but don't know how to make it useful or present it in a digestible way. That's where you can come in and create value. But you need the tools (strong math background, basic programming skills and some kind of database experience) to put it all together
 
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