Over the course of my career, I’ve been asked to build something that has already been built. I always point out that the task being assigned has already been built, and point to the solution that already exists. There are several reasons why I don’t like building something that someone else has already built. Those…
Custom Resume, or Generic?
In my last career article, I talked about balancing the truth and salesmanship. I wanted to try to explain how you can be honest, and at the same time make the case that you should be the one a hiring manager chooses to hire. Today, I’d like to go back a bit further in the…
Types of Optimization
One of the things I love most about my current position is the fundamental shift in the types of optimization I’m doing. Early on in my career I was concentrating on queries that would run once an hour, and cover thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of records per hour. I think that’s a great place…
Happy Christmas
Over the past few years, Happy Christmas has become one of my favorite Christmas songs. I like the message “War is over, if you want it.” Call me naive, but I believe it. The reason I chose it as my post’s title is the lyric: “What have you done? Another year over and a new…
Optimization Isn’t Always Easy
I’ve been at my new job for two weeks. In that time I’ve diagrammed all the databases as they are today. I’ve suggested recommendations on adding keys to some tables that had none. I’ve also started diagramming the object data that’s being collected in the system, I’m hoping to find duplication within the system and…
Foreign Keys and Witchcraft
I’ve worked with hundreds databases in my career. I could probably design a handful of them from memory if asked. I have notes to remind me of lessons learned from most of them. When I start looking through that list one of the things I most often reference is the importance of Foreign keys. Why…
No Turning Back
Well I did it! As of this morning I’ve submitted my session “The Career Your Career Could Smell Like.” I’ve been working on this one for a while now. Usually I would just take time one on one to help fix a resume, or to give some advice on interviewing. But I’ve decided it’s time…
Hitting the Ground Running
I’ve been on the job a couple days now, and I feel like I’m well on my way to contributing to my new company. On the first day I started pulling the latest backups to my local machine, and setting up a development environment where I can start diagramming the databases, and looking into the…
The Interview: Honesty and Salesmanship
I’m generally seen as someone who has somewhat mastered the whole process of getting a job. I have seem to found a good method for constructing a resume, and then conducting myself fairly well during the interview process. The biggest key to this: realize there’s always ways to improve yourself in this process. When others…
SQL 101 — the 11/24 presentation
Wednesday night I had the opportunity to give my SQL 101, the basics presentation. I hadn’t given this one since just before leaving IntegrationPoint earlier this year. I spent a little time updating the presentation based on past evaluations and some changes in SQL. My new version includes some newer data types that have been…