New Challenges

I've been employed as the database unit manager and database architect at Giant Eagle for close to two years now. A great job for a great company. Although Giant Eagle has always had a good reputation locally, my fellow consultants teased me about going to a supermarket. When I came to Giant Eagle, I was amazed when I realized how high-tech the company was and how efficient the technicians were at deploying and utilizing new technologies.

I certainly enjoyed my career at Giant Eagle and made many great friends during my stay there. But I always missed the entrepreneurial attitude and freedom that a smaller company provides. Working for a small company requires that one become involved in a wide variety of activities. As a result, the job roles are less rigidly defined, which offers greater flexibility to those that work there.

In addition, I have always enjoyed consulting. I like being technically challenged on a daily basis. Consulting certainly offers that. You can be working on a RAC implementation one day and tuning SQL the next. Your customers hold you to a higher standard than they do their own internal employees. They are paying you for you expertise, so they expect you to be an expert. I also like that type of challenge. You are judged solely on your talents (both technical and soft skills).

After much deliberation, I've decided to return to the consulting field and my old company, Contemporary Technologies Inc. (CTi). CTi is a remote database services provider based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

CTi specializes in providing remote database administration services for DB2, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Rdb. CTi is a well-rounded organization with multiple lines of business that will allow me to become involved in many different technologies and Oracle features. The company's services range the spectrum, from architecture design to database and application upgrades.

Having a senior-level position there will allow me to assist them in many different areas. I'm hoping to become involved in everything from day-to-day support and improving day-to-day operations to sales and marketing. The broader the scope, the more challenging the position will be. Exactly what I am looking for at this point in my career.

Since I've worked with CTI's technicians before; I know that the team is highly skilled. They will help me learn new skills that I will be able pass on to readers of this blog. I have long-established relationships with their DBAs, having worked with them at other companies in Pittsburgh. They are a group of no-nonsense, motivated IT professionals who want to do what is best for their customers. When they assume responsibility for a customer's database, they do just that. It becomes their database. You don't see that kind of attitude in many remote services outfits.

CTi is well aware of my penchant for writing. I now have the advantage of not only transferring my own knowledge to readers of this blog, but the knowledge of more than a dozen senior-level database experts. I will also have access to a much wider range of technologies and Oracle features. I intend to leverage both my fellow technician's expertise and my ability to work with new technologies and Oracle features to broaden the scope of this blog.

The result will be a higher quality blog that covers a wider range of topics.

Thanks for reading.

Chris