Are you considering a career using SQL programming language? If so, you will want to learn everything that you can about this industry before you invest in an education in this field. The good news is that there is a wide array of potential job opportunities within this industry, allowing you to find something that you excel at and are passionate about. By reading on, you can learn all of the important things that you need to know before entering this industry to decide whether or not this is the right career choice for you.
SQL Programming Pros
There are many pros to using SQL server as a database specialist and as a company. This section will look at the pros of using SQL programming as a database specialist.
Plentiful Career Opportunities
For those people interesting in SQL programming, there are actually numerous career opportunities that you can take advantage of. You can work in database administration. Also can work in database mining or online analytical processing. You can learn a little bit of everything in order to open more doors. If you are passionate in SQL programming, you have a wide variety of paths that you can take with this career.
Free SQL Server Developer Edition
You have access to the developer edition, which offers all of the enterprise SQL features that you could need for your career. All you need to do is download, install, and then make all of the necessary configurations for your development environment. This edition also allows you to access all of the different features and functionalities that come with the latest SQL Server versions.
Thriving SQL Community
The SQL community is much bigger than you think and the numbers in this industry are constantly growing. You can check out a variety of different community-hosted and global events in this industry, including SQL Saturday. There are also educational materials, conferences, and a stellar network of other very skilled and experienced SQL pros to help you whenever you need it.
Incredibly Useful Documentation Online
The SQL Server online documentation from Microsoft is incredibly detailed, structured, and you can learn a lot from it. You also have access to very useful whitepapers and demos to help you better understand a wide variety of topics.
SQL Programming Cons
You do have a couple of cons to consider when you are deciding on a career using the SQL programming language. These are the biggest cons to consider.
Highly Complex Performance Tuning
Performance tuning and query optimization can often be very difficult and complex for those data specialists that may not have the extensive specialized knowledge in this field. As a beginner, this won’t necessarily be a problem for you since beginners in this industry don’t often handle a lot of query optimization. The exception is if you are operating on bigger data sets.
No Native Support for Source Control
One of the biggest downsides of SQL is that the source control isn’t native in the SQL servers. What this means is that you will also need to use other third-party tools to make the necessary changes to database objects.
SQL Programming Difficulty
The good news is that SQL language is actually very easy to learn, even in the more advanced levels of this programming language. Some people are hesitant to learn highly technical languages like SQL, but you don’t need to be particularly tech savvy to grasp SQL. It’s not a mathematical based language, like Matlab is. SQL uses the English language to retrieve the specific information that you need from the databases. This makes it not only easy to master the basics of this language, but it’s also easy to learn and excel the more advanced SQL for those better jobs.
SQL Programming Career Prospects
There are quite a few career prospects that you can get when you work within this industry. Having the necessary SQL skills is important in today’s world because data is crucial for businesses to thrive. That’s why you can enjoy decent pay and security if you choose to work in this field. Here are some of the different career prospects for those with SQL programming skills:
- Database Administrator (DBA): This person is responsible for maintaining and the administration of the SQL server database.
- Database Developer: Design and implement databases.
- Data Base Testers: Validate the database to ensure the right data is loaded.
- Data Scientist: Responsible for dealing with big data including analyzing, mining, and predicting data to help the business grow and succeed.
- ETL Developer: Responsible for extracting and transforming the data from the databases.
- Data Application Interface Developer: Works with the various programming languages to connect databases, including Java, C#, and ASP.Net.
- BI Application Developer: Focuses on data warehousing, reporting, and the data transformations as well as dealing with various query languages to better analyze individual data cubes. This is one of the more higher demand positions in this industry.
- Data Analyst: Analyzes data to create important performance indicators for the company.
- Cloud Database Expert: Focuses on the various cloud databases out there including Microsoft Azure and AWS.
- BI Administrator: Executes ETL jobs as well as publishing and monitoring data warehousing reports. Will sometimes compare data with the SQL database for any backend validation.
These are just some of the various jobs where you can use your SQL skills. SQL is among the most popular programming languages used by developers, SysAdmins, and data scientists. This is a field that is growing in popularity. The average annual salary in this field is $84,000.
Conclusion
SQL programming can be an exciting and fascinating field to work in. You can work in a variety of different areas, learning additional skillsets to help you grow in your career. This is a career path that you can find incredibly rewarding. This is a career path that is in high demand today, especially considering the reliance businesses have on technology today. Data is necessary for every field, so there is great job security and stability if you choose to join this career path.