The Next Phase of My Career

For anyone who hasn't seen an update somewhere else in the social media universe, I recently started a new job as a Senior SQL Server DBA for Ntirety on their remote DBA team.  Ntirety is a top Remote DBA services firm that works in MSSQL, Oracle, and mySQL support.

Why would you do that, Andy?

I made this move for several reasons:

• Ntirety has a larger Microsoft SQL Server business than my previous employer - sure Ntirety also handles Oracle and mySQL, but MSSQL is the largest portion of the business.  My previous employer was heavily Oracle (and VMware) focused.
• The ability to work from home - at my previous job, I had the opportunity to intermittently work from home when I had an appointment, etc. (and they were very easy to work with from this point-of-view), but the expectation was clearly that we should be in the office whenever possible (and this expectation has grown over the two years I was there).  My new job is 100% WFH with occasional trips to the mother ship in Boston.  I have never worked 100% from home, but am looking forward to the opportunity to not have a 30-40 minute commute each way every day.
• Decreased travel - at my previous job we were 50/50 (maybe 60/40) consulting/remote managed services, and almost all of the consulting was traveling to client sites all over the United States.  While I traveled less than some of my colleagues, it was still significantly more travel than I would like.  I came into the company after an interview process discussion about how the company did both types of work and that people could choose a path, but it became readily apparent that the model was designed around starting in managed services and then "graduating" (for lack of a better analogy) into becoming a traveling consultant, and this model is not for me.
• The opportunity to work with other senior personnel - two of the staff at Ntirety are MCMs and I know just working with them will help me enhance my skillset. (HASHTAG MCMsAreCool HASHTAG Fanboy HASHTAG TotallyStealingThisFromJimmyAndJT)  As many readers of my blog already know, the star MSSQL employee (and hopefully soon-to-be MCM) from my former company recently left to form his own practice, leaving a void that has not been filled.

Sure there is a little more money (plus some savings in gas, etc. from no commute) but that isn't the reason I moved - if I had just needed a little more cash I would have worked with my employer to find out what I needed to do to make that happen. This is 100% about quality of life, the opportunity for technical growth and (most importantly) the opportunity to be more present with my family and our boys.

So what's next?

As you may (or may not) have noticed, my blogging has been very slack over the last year,  and I hope my new role will re-energize me to increase my focus on this important aspect of technical development.  As mentioned above, I have never worked from home full-time, so expect to see posts in the coming weeks on my experiences with this new job style.  There are already multiple blogs describing tips and tricks and personal experiences on working from home (listed in no particular order):

• Merrill Aldrich (blog/@onupdatecascade) and his post "Five Things I’ve Learned About Surviving the Telecommute"
• Brent Ozar (blog/@BrentO) and his series on tips for Telecommuters
• K. Brian Kelley (blog/@kbriankelley) and his cautionary post "Why I Don't Look for a Telecommuting Job"
• Thomas LaRock (blog/@SQLRockstar) and his post "Eight Things I have Learned While Telecommuting"
• Erin Stellato (blog/@erinstellato) and her description of "What I Know For Sure…After One Year at SQLskills"

While I greatly value all of these fellow #sqlfamily members' opinions, I also know that everyone's experience is different and I look forward to documenting my personal journey with telecommuting.

I also know that every job brings a new set of technological experiences, and hope to blog about those as well. 

Wish me luck!