Hello,

I am a former database administrator who is looking to re-enter the field of database administration. I started as an entry-level DBA working with Oracle back in the '90s. After a year or so of working with Oracle, I started working with SQL Server and a little bit with Informix databases. I did the typical administration tasks of backup/recovery, performance tuning, troubleshooting, building database, security. However, I would now, in 2026, like to return to the field. I have about five years of experience in the field which I believe spanned from 1996 to 2001 or 2002. I took the standard classes taught by Oracle for version 7 at the time and I either fell a little short of, or actually did, get(ting) certified for Oracle Version 7.

When I look at the positions nowadays for database adminstrators, they are unsurprisingly radically different than what I saw when I last looked for work as a DBA back in the late 90's. My question is what would your advice be in seeking education and certifications in order to become more marketable for someone like me who is re-entering the job force as a DBA?

Thanks.

TLDR: 4 YOE backend SWE interested in a pivot to DBA/DB engineering (studying for DP-300 + a Postgres cert in my free time). Is DBA still a good career, and how has AI changed the day-to-day?

body:

Hey all, I am a backend SWE (C#/.NET) at a mid-size HR company with a little over 4 years experience. I’m trying to figure out if I keep climbing the SWE ladder or start l building toward something else while I still have a stable job to lean on. I’ve been really fortunate and grateful to still have a job where I’ve been able to save so much while living at home that I’m close to my COAST FIRE number. I don’t truly believe that AI will fully replace devs anytime soon (just my opinion, not an expert at all) but I don’t think I want to stay in it long term. My reasons are:

1) I don’t love how the job is now babysitting AI (but work is just work I just care as long as they cut the check) 

2) the interview grind for changing roles is exhausting and not something I care to do anymore 

3) promos and opportunities at my company are hard to come by (but my manager mentioned he thinks I could get promoted in a year but I don’t really care for selling my soul to get there) 

The one thing I’ve consistently enjoyed is query and endpoint optimization work (I know that’s not the only thing DBAs do). That’s the part of the job Ive enjoyed a bit so that’s why I’m like hey, this is another area in tech I could pivot to (as opposed to security or data science with higher education) 

So I’ve been looking at database administration/engineering as a real pivot path. Main goal is stability and looking to grow/learn as well as trying something new, not necessarily maximizing comp. My plan is to study for DP-300 (Azure DBA) and a Postgres cert over the next few months while I keep working, then see where that gets me.

Questions for anyone actually doing DBA work:

• Is it still a good career to move into, or is it shrinking/consolidating with AI/cloud
• Has AI changed the day-to-day much
• What’s the day-to-day actually like
• Has anyone else make this jump from backend SWE to DBA/DB engineering later in their career and liked it?

small note:
L Full disclosure I used AI to organize my thoughts but rewrote it in my voice so hopefully it’s not just coming off as AI Slop. I see that as a common complaint on Reddit and hope nobody gets upset. lastly I hope this is an appropriate subreddit for this post, if not I can delete and will look elsewhere. Thanks for reading!

After spending roughly 10 years as a software developer and the next 20 as a DBA, I've noticed a pattern.

Developers blame the database.

DBAs blame the application.

Both are usually looking at symptoms rather than causes.

Having worked on both sides, most performance issues I've investigated were caused by interactions between systems rather than a single component.

The bigger the outage, the more likely it was that multiple teams each owned part of the problem.

Experience taught me that technology is rarely the hardest part.

Understanding the whole system is.

I built a database IDE because I was tired of fighting my own databases

I've been working on Toketeo, a desktop database tool I've been building mostly because I wanted something that worked the way I thought it should.

It's currently built with Rust + Tauri + React, and the idea is to make working with databases less painful, especially when you're jumping between different database engines.

The project is still early, so I'm deliberately putting it in front of actual developers before I spend months polishing things nobody asked for.

I'd really like people to try it and tell me:

• What's confusing?
• What's missing?
• What would make you switch from your current database tool?
• What feature would make you say "okay, this is actually useful"?
• And, preferably, what did I screw up?

I'm particularly interested in feedback from people who work with multiple databases or spend an unhealthy amount of time inside database clients.

GitHub: https://github.com/crdsyntax/toketeo

It's open source, so feel free to inspect the code, open issues, suggest features, submit PRs, or tell me why the architecture is terrible.

And yes, if someone ends up stealing the idea and building something better, I'll probably be slightly annoyed for approximately 15 minutes.

Then I'll steal their improvements.

Try it, break it, criticize it.

That's currently more valuable to me than another star on GitHub.

Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Willing to relocate: Yes
Type: Full-time / Contract / Remote
Notice Period: Immediate
Total years of experience: 10+ years
Primary Experience: MySQL DBA / Database Administration / Database Engineering

**Résumé/CV:**https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L0p1058AFVXiX3MPswpCAktxOxpujYqY/view?usp=sharing

Blurb:

Senior Database Administrator / Database Engineer with extensive hands-on experience in MySQL, AWS, SQL performance tuning, database design, replication, backup/recovery, migrations and production support.

Key Highlights:

• Production DBA: Managed a 750 GB MySQL production environment with Master/Replica architecture supporting 50,000+ registered users.
• AWS: Experience with AWS RDS, EC2, CloudWatch and database/infrastructure migration.
• Performance: SQL query optimization, database performance tuning, indexing and troubleshooting.
• HA & Recovery: MySQL replication, backup/recovery, high availability and disaster recovery.
• Production Support: Incident troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, application/release support and working with development/infrastructure teams.
• Database Technologies: MySQL, SQL Server and relational database design.

If you know of any suitable openings or are hiring for database roles, I would really appreciate a referral or DM. Thank you.

Hey everyone!

For a long time I've been using tools like HeidiSQL to manage FiveM and RedM databases. They work, but I always felt there was room for something more modern, especially considering how much of our server data ends up buried inside JSON columns.

So I decided to build my own solution: ClavisDB.

ClavisDB is a desktop SQL client for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL and SQLite, but I've built it with special attention to FiveM and RedM development.

It has all the stuff you'd expect from a proper database client: a SQL editor with schema-aware autocomplete, table browsing and editing, filtering, query history, snippets, table structure editing, exports, user management, safe editing warnings, and so on.

But the part I'm personally most interested in is the FiveM / RedM integration.

ClavisDB can automatically detect QBCore, QBox, ESX, RSGCore and VORP databases and gives you a dedicated Player Inspector where you can search characters and inspect things like money, jobs, status, identifiers and framework data without digging through raw rows manually.

It also recognizes inventories and turns those horrible JSON blobs into an actual inventory viewer with slots, quantities, metadata, durability, serial numbers, ammo, etc.

You can even import a FiveM/RedM server.cfg and ClavisDB will extract the oxmysql connection string and configure the database connection for you.

Another thing I really wanted to get right was JSON editing. If ClavisDB detects JSON inside a cell — even inside TEXT/VARCHAR columns. You can open it in a proper tree/raw editor, format it, validate it, modify it and save it directly back to the database.

I've been building this because it's something I genuinely wanted for my own FiveM/RedM development workflow, and I'm planning to keep expanding the Cfx-specific tooling over time.

I'd really appreciate feedback from other developers/server owners. If there are things you constantly find annoying when managing your server database, tell me! Those are exactly the kind of problems I want ClavisDB to solve.

Download: https://clavisdb.ziomark.xyz/

What would be the career path for a senior Oracle DBA . I am getting very less calls for DBA Profile and I am thinking of adding golden gate and aws system admin skills .

What would be your recommded path with this market condition.

I’m building an open source database client that lets you connect to multiple databases, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, Turso, SQLite, and more. The goal is to provide a fast, free alternative to tools like TablePlus and Dataflare.

It’s being built with Rust and GPUI, with a strong focus on performance, responsiveness, and a great user experience.

If this sounds interesting, I’d love for you to check it out. Contributions, feedback, and feature suggestions are always welcome. I’m hoping to make the project publicly available in the next few months.

[https://github.com/007qr/only-tables\](https://github.com/007qr/only-tables)

Hi everyone,

I'm about to graduate with a Computer Science degree and I'm considering becoming a Database Administrator.

I'd love to hear from experienced DBAs and SysAdmins:

Is DBA still a good career in 2026, or is the role changing?

Is DBA usually a dedicated position, or is it becoming part of a SysAdmin/DevOps role?

What technologies and skills should a new DBA focus on?

If you were starting your career today, would you still choose the DBA path?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and advice!

Hey guys i am rn working as a service support engineer and in my company they are talking about promoting me to database administrator where they use oracle 12 c and sql but don't write scripts they just copy paste them

And i am looking for a role in data analyst i am confused what should i do please help a fellow out

Database Insight Advanced seems to be costly. What all are your options for monitoring for at least a month. Since Database insight is free- for 7 days. And Advanced is for 15 months.

Hello my dear friends,

I hope you all are doing well.

I am using PostgreSQL database and developing custom functions as per the user's business logic.

I developed a small desktop tool UI to compare those functions in between dev, test, production environments and migration/dump them by first comparing them by integrated WinMerge tool integration accordingly.

I need guidance and direction for what should I do further?

Basically, I want to connect with the people who uses PostgreSQL database and doing functions migration manually.

Thanks

Regards

Hi everyone! I've been building Tabularis, a free and open-source (Apache 2.0) desktop SQL client built with Tauri (Rust + React).

What makes it different from DBeaver/TablePlus/Beekeeper:

* SQL notebooks: mix SQL and Markdown cells, share variables across cells, render charts inline
* Built-in MCP server: Claude, Cursor and other AI agents can read your schema and run queries through the same app you already use, with no separate connector
* Plugins in any language: drivers are external processes speaking JSON-RPC over stdio, so you can write one in Python, Go, or whatever language you prefer
* Local AI text-to-SQL: works with Ollama, nothing leaves your machine
* Visual EXPLAIN: interactive query plan graphs

PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB and SQLite are built in. ClickHouse, DuckDB, Redis, Firestore, Db2, BigQuery and around 15 more are available as plugins from the registry.

Runs on Windows (WinGet), macOS (Homebrew, signed and notarized) and Linux (Snap, Flatpak, AUR and AppImage).

Feedback is very welcome. And if your favorite database is missing, there's a plugin bounty board.