One of the Happiest Jobs in America? Database Administrator

Recently, Business News Daily reported on a CareerBliss survey of the happiest jobs in America. Guess which job came in first place? Database administrator. Previous surveys also show database administrator as one of the jobs resulting in the greatest happiness.

Why?

CareerBliss analyzed 25,000 job reviews to determine which had the greatest job satisfaction. While pay is, of course, a factor, it’s not always the most important ingredient for employee satisfaction. CareerBliss looked at these other measures:

• work-life balance
• relationship with coworkers
• work environment
• job resources
• compensation
• growth opportunities
• company culture
• daily tasks

CareerBliss then compiled these rankings into a single score between 0 and 5 for each job title researched. Database Administrator had a composite score of 3.9 in 2014 — good enough for the top position of the most satisfying jobs listed at CareerBliss.

Other similar jobs also fared well on the CareerBliss List:

#2 — QA Analyst
#8 — Software Engineer or Software Developer
#17 — Network Engineer

What Makes Database Administration Such a Good Job?

We asked some of our own database administrators at Datavail what it is they like most about their jobs. We got some interesting answers:

Senthuran (Sen) Subramaniam enjoys the broad scope of responsibilities — including building and managing databases:

Datavail DBA Amy Malecka likes the backup support she gets from Datavail’s DBAs in our centers in Mumbai and Bangalore. When small requests start to overwhelm her ability to work on more important projects, she shifts responsibilities to the team in India:

Finally, database administrator Chad Cleveland loves the flexibility. At Datavail, he has a lot of control over his own schedule and is encouraged to pursue his own interests.

The bottom line is this: If you’re considering a career in the technological fields, why not go with a job such as database administrator that consistently gets high marks for employee satisfaction? With the increasing reliance on and proliferation of data – and therefore databases – across all industries, choosing a college major that encompasses database administration is an attractive choice. And for those in the workplace, a shift into database administration might make you both happier and wealthier.

Datavail is always looking for people who want to make a living helping people with their database problems, and being rewarded with great pay, great hours, and a great place to work. Check out some of the videos on our culture page to get the inside scoop from our database administrators.