Junior DBA Interview Questions

I noticed that Brent Ozar wrote a post on how to get a Junior DBA job. His post reminded me about some earlier posts I had done regarding how to do a job search as well as the interview itself. And as great as his post was, I think it was missing one particular detail on the types of interview questions you may want to ask a potential Junior DBA. I mean, if you have done all that work to get yourself an interview, you should know what types of questions you may be asked, right? And if you are doing the interview you should have an idea of what to ask someone with little to no practical DBA experience.

Before we go any further let me make one thing clear. Yes, this is exactly like dating. You should know that by now. But since I have already explained that to you once, I won’t be doing that again. Instead, we will take a different approach, and give you the top ten questions you should be asking potential new Junior DBA’s.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I will continue the dating theme. So, here are my top questions to ask during an interview. Are these the best interview questions? Probably not, you really need to tailor your set of questions for your own shop, but these can hopefully set you on the right path. If you keep in mind that you are looking for someone that you can work closely with, and mentor, then the conversation you have should flow naturally during the interview. So, here are the best interview questions, in no particular order.

What is a database?

Let’s start with the basics. This would be like asking your date “so, what do you do for work?” While it may seem silly to ask this question keep one thing in mind: there are no silly interview questions. No matter how ridiculous a question may seem to both the person asking it and the person responding, they will always serve a purpose. In this case you may find the candidate talking about MS Access, or Filemaker, or whatever they have been exposed to previously. Let their response be an indication of their fundamental knowledge of some RDBMS system. See if they can explain the difference between a data and a log file, for example.

How do people connect to a database?

This is about the same as asking them “where do you usually go to meet up with others?” What you want here is to gauge if the candidate knows the basic difference between Windows Authentication and SQL logins. Perhaps they do, in which case you might want to see if they understand connection strings, or how different apps might try to connect to a database, or even some basics of ODBC connectivity. You are not looking for a expert, but you do want someone to understand that different people and applications have different connectivity needs. or, at the very least, someone you can train to understand the differences.

Who is the most important user of a database?

This can be considered identical to the line “seen any good movies lately?” What you want here is to get an understanding if they candidate knows who the stars are. And who are the stars? Well, everyone. That’s right. Every connection to a database server is as important as any other. What’s that? You say it is only a development server, so it is not that important? Well, a development server is considered a production server to a developer. In other words, every person and every connection is important, no matter if they sit in the corner office or not. If the candidate lists out only a handful of people or groups as important and fails to understand that everyone is important, consider that a red flag.

Are you active in any social networks? Do you blog?

It should be clear that this is the same as asking them “are you seeing anyone?” What you want to find out here is if the candidate is sexually active in the community in some way. Why? Well, it’s simple. You need to know if they are amenable to working with others, either getting help or giving help. As a DBA you will often need to work with a wide range of people, sometimes they will need your help, sometimes you will need theirs. If they are not used to interacting with others then you may have an issue should they join your team and continue to work in a silo. So, unlike a real date, here you are looking for someone that admits to spending time with others.