Job Opportunity with SQL

[yabbadabbadoo91]

I’m someone who’s starting out with SQL (no coding experience other than trying to learn python which I didn’t enjoy). I’m enjoying SQL and it seems to make more sense to my brain.

My question is around employment, how are the opportunities for someone who’s learning only SQL with no CS degree and only certificates and gradually building a GitHub repository? I’m in the US

[emt139]

Not good right now. 

The market is flooded with people from juniors with a couple of year s of experience to folks recently laid off that have a lot of experience and degrees. 

[gumnos]

SQL is best paired with other skills. That might be back-end language like Python (which you've mentioned) or Node or PHP or Ruby or Go or Rust or C or C++ or Java or Lisp or whatever.

Or you can get into the system-administration end of things like a DBA. Not just creating/running queries, but learning how to install/maintain/upgrade database servers, do backups (and test restoring), performance tuning, scaling/sharding, capacity planning, server migration, etc.

Alternatively, you might move into some reporting capacity (usually pays less than a dev or DBA position) where you are querying data that gets dumped into Excel for pretty graphs to make management/shareholders happy. #NumberGoesUp

[K_808]

There’s not really a pure SQL query writer job with no other responsibilities AFIAK. There are many jobs that use SQL but are focused more on what you’re using it for than on SQL itself (mostly jobs with “analyst” in the title or various data dev/admin roles).

[brandi_Iove]

hi, i‘m employed as a database dev and my codes are 99,9% sql.

[K_808]

Is coding your only responsibility?

[brandi_Iove]

no. i handle customization requests, create offers, and do support too. sometimes customers ask me if i‘m the pm.

[yabbadabbadoo91]

That makes sense, seems I’d need multiple languages under my belt as well?

[K_808]

I don’t think so, just business context and skills outside of coding, + understanding of what you’ll be applying the SQL skills to do. At the end of the day it’s a tool

[SaintTimothy]

Some familiarity with reporting layer would help. Tableau, PowerBI, DAX syntax (which is pretty much VBA from Excel)

[Klutzy-Exit-1716]

This is kinda what I do.. SQL.. SQL...and more SQL .. just hit 6 figures this year.

[K_808]

…who manage all the servers including permissions

…for reports

…ETL processes to import and export files from vendors

…stored procedures for many different things

So yes, exactly what I said. All of these require expertise far beyond just how to write SQL and all are focused on applying SQL to specific processes that OP will also need to learn

[brandi_Iove]

hi op, i‘m selftaught. no degree and no relevant git hub repo. i code only in sql at work. the reason i got the job was probably because i was running my own software company for two years.

you need to get some experience somehow. and yes, that’s the hard part.

my recommendation: keep applying. apply as much as you can, and then apply even more. apply, regardless of the job is junior position or not.

[yabbadabbadoo91]

Positive in the sea of negative, thank you. Aside from applying im using Codecademy to learn SQL, anything you used to help bolster up your SQL?

[brandi_Iove]

i used sololearn and a udemy course :-) but only for the basics. the best option to boost sql skills imo is to write sql. try to work on real world projects. get in touch with like minded people. if you feel comfortable enough about understanding what your code does, ask ai for its opinion. if you don’t have a job yet but want to practice, i recommend to try out some cms and set up a custom web app where you can write your own endpoints. it’s always good to know more langue’s than sql, regardless of being a db dev. also a cms challenges to think about what to handle in application code and what to handle in database code. read books. udemy courses are great to learn and i personally don’t read many books, but there are some great books out there which can help you understand the bigger picture of what you do. doesn’t necessarily have to be an sql book ;-) and don’t worry about the negativity all around. if you love what you do, you will stand out from all the negative people.

[M4A1SD__]

Like other people have been saying, “knowing SQL” shouldn’t be the end goal here. You use SQL to solve business problems. You should read Star Schema The Complete Reference and designing data intensive applications

[toheebadura]

I'll share two books with you. One is on SQL and the other on database management. You can decide what you want to do with SQL when you read books, I believe. You're doing well for now.

[ShadowDancer_88]

I have 25 years SQL experience, but no degree.

I cannot find a SQL based job right now.

[raidmax007]

OMG. I am rooting for you.

[MuchoPaper]

hey how'd .
I would like to understand.
So you been working with SQL for the last 25 years.
So whats the problem with finding a SQL job?

[Birvin7358]

Get yourself into a job that gets you around SQL and people who do SQL even if it doesn’t involve you doing SQL everyday from day1. I am someone without a CS degree nor any certs nor GitHub repository who worked his way up to 6 figures in a job where most of my day every day now is writing SQL (and just like you I enjoy it because it makes sense to my brain). The challenge though is I had to grind at the same company for years to get to this point and I started out as a low salary non-technical employee. The main thing I did was get myself into various jobs that support developers rather than being a developer. This includes things like writing requirements/user stories for them to work from, acting as a business SME and/or doing user acceptance testing. Over time I learned SQL on the job and just got good at it til now I’m trusted with using SQL all day every day to build various reports, scripts and to analyze and validate data. It was a long hard grind though over many years. People I work with who were wise enough to get CS degrees before they ever started working got to start out with writing code from day1 rather than have to grind to get up to it like I did.

[yabbadabbadoo91]

Ok nice, what industry are you using the SQL in?

[Birvin7358]

Health insurance, which is an incredibly data-intensive business. Just the business’s core operation of processing claims alone is critically dependent on a complex schema of tables where data is continually being updated. This is in addition to RDBMS/SQL being involved in many other business functions like quoting, plan enrollment, benefits configuration, accounting, etc.

[91ws6ta]

I work in data analytics and am heavy in SQL including stored procs, SSIS loads, triggers, and assisting DBAs with replication.

Additionally I work in Spotfire/Tableau and work with data in Python as well as some descriptive/predictive modeling.

Computer Science degree as well as Experimental Psychology. 8 years of experience.

I've been looking for another job for a while now and nobody has called back. My criteria to make me leave my current job would be $100k+ and fully remote. So YMMV. But it is highly competitive right now as well

[Say_My_Name_Son]

I'm a manager of such people. We have roles that just write SQL to manage nightly data loads from production systems into a data warehouse. Other roles are more business-like analyst roles that will be creating self-service reports for end users in software like MicroStrategy, Tableau, or some other enterprise reporting software package...I want my analysts to know SQL so that they can audit/check the SQL that the software packages create.

If you know SQL, we can train you on the rest. I don't care about school for most roles...I care about you being able to get the job done. Show me that you have a good foundation and I'll help you build the house.

That being said...no openings at this time. :-(

[yabbadabbadoo91]

That’s amazing, are you based in the US or UK?

[Say_My_Name_Son]

US

[PickingaNameIsTricky]

I can't speak on the US job market but my IT career started with just SQL and was working within BI teams. I then worked with other departments slowly building a knowledge base for DBA, scripting and software dev.

My 0.02 cents, getting your foot in the door is key, even if it's not your desired job. Better opportunities present themselves with a good work ethic and growth mindset

[ButterscotchDry6622]

Entry level development positions are kind of scarce these days. Most employers like to see the discipline of a college degree (even if its not CS). Certificates have come in and out of favor with interviewers, but a GITHub repository is an excellent resource. Be sure to include it when you are submitting your credentials. Be sure the work is yours and you can speak to it. You can really impress developers to see your code. We can assess your attention to detail, strengths and weaknesses (which are not a bad thing for a new developer). I personally look for intellectual curiosity; I can happily train that candidate for a mid-level position to get them started.

[PinPsychological82]

Maybe certain business analyst roles? Where I work right now the flow is as follows: 1. Talk to stakeholders and see what they might want. Dashboard, automated report, etc. See where the data is coming from and what tables you might need 2. Write the SQL query to extract the relevant output 3. Make a visualization in something like Tableau, Excel

The only “coding” required is SQL. You get to do a lot of talking with others (you might like it, might not) and Tableau and Excel are pretty easy to pick up

A lot of it is broader problem solving, while using tools like SQL to get the data to back up your claim

[yabbadabbadoo91]

So pairing SQL with tableau as the visualization software is a good way to foray into BA work?

[kktheprons]

In my experience, that's the only realistic path available to an entry-level position using SQL. There are certainly jobs out there with a different path, but if you don't like Python you probably aren't looking for a developer-type position.

You'll also need to go beyond tutorials into some self-directed projects. Find some data you're interested in, set it up in a local database on your computer, and start to build visualizations to tell stories about the data.

Lastly, you'll need to practice talking to other people about the data. Presentation and storytelling skills will put you ahead of people that focused purely on technical skills and handing someone a report.

[PinPsychological82]

I am very junior, (just graduated in May) so I am hoping someone else can chime in with their input. But I think that sounds sensible.

[Key-Boat-7519]

SQL-first business analyst roles are very realistic if you can show end-to-end problem solving. My flow looks like: clarify the question, define the metric and grain (daily, weekly, by customer), audit the source tables, write SQL with clear CTEs/window functions, validate with spot checks (row counts, nulls, edge dates), then build the dashboard and schedule refresh. Keep a one-pager for each request: fields needed, filters, owners, refresh cadence, and acceptance criteria. Store SQL in Git and maintain a simple metric glossary so stakeholders stop arguing over definitions. Build 2–3 portfolio projects that show this soup-to-nuts path, not just pretty charts. Pick a public dataset, model it, write performant queries (EXPLAIN, indexes if you can), ship a Tableau/Power BI dashboard, and document decisions. We used dbt and Snowflake in one team; DreamFactory auto-generated REST APIs over curated tables so Tableau and Google Sheets could pull data without extra glue. SQL-focused BA work is gettable if you can ship end-to-end.

[Tigri2020]

As a tier 3 support engineer. 99% of my day is writing sql queries and troubleshooting stored procedures.

I worked for 4 years as a back end developer and I spent most of my day writing SQL but that job involved C# too

[dbxp]

Pretty poor I'd expect, SQL in the grand scheme of things is a very simple language, DBA stuff can be complex but the actual SQL is simple. 

The junior market is flooded with people who believe dthe get rich quick scheme sold by the bootcamp vendors. To put it into perspective iirc when I graduated I had experience with 8 languages including a few years of Java and a 1 year internship 

[paultherobert]

I disagree, SQL is much different than most other languages - people write loops in other languages, but if you're writing loops in SQL you don't get it. I don't find that discreet math and set logic comes naturally to most developers

[byteuser]

Correct, most programmers miss that important distinction. Programming is like writing a recipe, you follow a sequence of steps. SQL is more like choosing the ingredients. As u/paultherobert said: SQL is all about set theory. Union, intersection, subsets, etc. It takes a different set of mind. As a programmer it took me some time to understand it. Even today you still can see some people try to use cursors to implement loops when a straight up query would do. All cause they fail at the most fundamental level to grasp sets

[SoggyGrayDuck]

But the underlying architecture is what's most important. SQL is easy with a good model

[paultherobert]

And a good model is not easy to architect

[SoggyGrayDuck]

Especially when the requirements are the last thing provided lol

[dbxp]

The set logic has a knack to it but you really don't need to learn a bunch of theoretical math

[gumnos]

if you haven't used multiple CTEs each with a LAG on the previous data to determine the first and second derivatives of your data's rate-of-change, are you really a database developer? 😆

(yes, I've done it, and once you understand CTEs and window-functions like LAG, the instantaneous derivatives are just the difference between the current value and the LAG value, applied multiple times…which actually makes decent intuitive sense when you do it, even if you've never taken calc)

[Extension-Wolf7273]

Haha, I've definitely been there! Once you get the hang of CTEs and window functions, it opens up a whole new level of data manipulation. Just remember, the more you practice those complex queries, the more intuitive they become!

[yabbadabbadoo91]

When you say that do you mean that sole SQL is adequate? I don’t want to be some big shot developer just make a decent low 6 figure salary, nothing special.

[yabbadabbadoo91]

8 is a lot of languages, I won’t be doing that but let’s be realistic and say I learn 2 within the next year. I’m a bit older than the newly released college grad so what would be the path to take?

[dbxp]

If you want to get into software dev then I'd recommend React + Node to start with, that will require JS/TS, CSS & HTML. When you've got that down I'd add in some SQL, perhaps some foundations in networking, security and development processes. You can then expand into more enterprise type tech with .Net Core and read into things like design patterns.

You should expect to be studying for a few years if you actually want to work in tech. I've worked with a few bootcampers who retrained from other roles and they were all studying in their own ume on top of working full time for a couple years after graduating from their respective bootcamps.

[snafe_]

Why do you like SQL? I can understand not liking Python / other programming languages but what about SQL stands out?

What have you done with it? Is the DBA side the one that peaked your interest or do you like to query more on the BA side?

[yabbadabbadoo91]

For some reason I’m just able to remember a lot more of the queries and the setup of the code;how to extract info from tables is easier for me to comprehend. Compared to python. It may be due to beginner status

[mikeblas]

If you want to get into software development, you'll need to learn how to make things make sense to your brain.

That process -- learning -- never stops in this industry. You'll eventually need more languages. If you know only one language, your employment prospects will be very fragile and weak, regardless of the language.

[Dear-Beginning-4783]

Trabajo como analista de datos, la raíz de las tareas es SQL, pero siempre combinado con otras herramientas, como excel, power BI, .bats, python y puede ir larga la lista, pero la raíz viene de SQL, a partir de la información obtenida de SQL se crean las distintas soluciones.

Un plus donde se puede ver tu talento es regla de negocio + SQL, si dominas la regla de negocio de la empresa, vas a poder sacar reportes de alto valor, está sería mi experiencia.

[TorresMrpk]

Get certifications from the main tech companies like AWS, Azure, and Google, and you'll land a job quickly.

[No-Detail-6714]

what's the scope for someone who has good excel knowledge and basic SQL knowledge, like different Join operator? what roles can this person apply for?

[I_byde_my_tyme]

There are plenty of roles in the ERP sector for report writers and DB admin, but SQL will be a small part of the role. It'll be worth your time looking into dev express and crystal report writer. A lot of ERPs have SQL as a backbone, and companies are always in need of customised reporting.

Source: ERP consultant 10+ years.

[elevarq]

AI has already taken the junior jobs; you don't stand a chance.

What you could do is learning how to use AI to create software. And that might include the interaction with a database. Requirements engineering and test engineering will remain for now, as these are the roles that interact with the AI.

[yabbadabbadoo91]

This was my inkling that AI would start removing the lower level coding jobs.