I really enjoy my job. I became a full-time production DBA about a year ago and it has been an overwhelmingly positive move. I work for a good company and with a terrific group of people. There have been many days where I’ve had to force myself to leave the office because I was so engrossed in a task and just didn't want to set it aside.
But there's something that not everyone might consider before taking on this job. If you have a partner, children, or both, taking a job as a production DBA is, for lack of a better phrase, a family decision.
Being on-call is potentially disruptive to your family schedule. And sleep schedules! My on-call rotation is two weeks on, two weeks off. In those two weeks, I have:
- The usual alerts that can come in anytime day or night, the emergency fixes when someone deletes something that shouldn't be deleted, etc.
- A software release which requires that I get up at 3:45 AM once per rotation.
- Monthly srver patching at 2 AM, if it happens during my rotation.
Many years ago, I had a job where I carried on-call responsibilities and it was rough. Lots of nights and weekends. Then I got a decade-long break. Before I took my current job, I discussed the on-call requirements with my spouse a bit before accepting. I didn't want to subject her to that again without making sure that she was OK with it.
Chris Sommer (b|t) said one day in the SQL Community Slack that being a production DBA is kind of a blue-collar job. Shift work, etc. He makes a good point. I've adapted to the schedule and it's not bad...for me. But I'm not alone in the house. I have a spouse and two young children. Family trips, date night, kids' activities, school events, etc. - the calendar can fill up quickly. My spouse is a very light sleeper, so any chirp from the phone is likely to wake her up (by contrast, I once put my phone three inches from my head and slept through multiple personal email alerts). This job has the potential to impact the whole family, in both small ways and large.