Have to pay for experience…
FWIW, you can download Solaris 10 right here. Sun recently released it for free.
(Oops, stusser already mentioned it. But I posted a link! :P )
Huh. What would you expect to pay someone like you describe, especially based in an expensive area like NYC.
If they bust you, you can always claim you meant the Atari cartridge Solaris.
…and ‘chown’.
Huh. What would you expect to pay someone like you describe, especially based in an expensive area like NYC.[/quote]
150k?
:shock:
Wow, that must be a cost of living thing. I meet almost of the qualifications stusser was talking about and I’m happy to be getting a third of that in the midwest.
I did something similar to this when I got out of the Air Force. I tried to style myself as a Solaris sysadmin, as it seemed like a profitable way to go. Clearance + sysadmin I thought meant $$$. Thing is, I was in no way qualified to be a sysadmin. Sure, I used Sparcs and whatnot in my military job, but that didn’t mean I could manage a SUN network. So I gussied up my resume, bought some books and crammed. I was holed up in San Antonio and got a few interviews, but nothing panned out. Then Raytheon called and actually flew me out to Tucson to interview for a sysadmin position at one of their missile production facilities. I spent the whole night previous trying to absorb all the information in these Solaris books I’d bought. The interview came and I tried to suppress the impression that I was an expert, and although they were very nice, I never heard back from them.
Tucson looked like it sucked, anyway…
Yeah, I’m not sure how much you pay for your rent/mortgage, but it is most certainly not a third of what it would be to live anywhere in NYC.
Basically, nobody gets paid $150k for technical work unless they’re something really special. Not a DBA but someone with a title like “chief architect” or “information scientist” which generally means that they’re involved in the biz side anyway. I’m not going to get into actual salary numbers on a web forum.
Consultants can get that kind of money for technical work :D
I’ve known consultants that can charge upwards of $200/hr for really specialized esoteric skills. I realize consultant income vs normal employee income is a little apples->oranges due to consultants self paying a lot of the taxes, but I’m sure a consultant getting $200/hr is going to do it. Just assuming 30 billable hours/week they are still going to gross over $300k.
I wish I had killer bs skills, then I too could be a rich consultant.
Just assuming 30 billable hours/week they are still going to gross over $300k.
For most consultants, 30 billable hours per week would be an insanely optimistic assumption. The consultants I work with (granted, they are biopharma consultants, not database) get paid 2200 euros (or about 3 grand) per day and yes, they are well-off, but part of the reason their rate is so high is because of the inherent instability of consulting. This seems to be true across the board: as a consultant, a year of work could easily be followed by a year of downtime.
Basically, “independent consultant” is a nice way to say unemployed. Like “freelancing”.
not true. It’s only a euphemism if the “consultant” is actively looking for full-time work. I’ve known many consultants and I’ve even been one, and most of them are turning down full-time jobs because for whatever reason it had no appeal to them.
I’ve worked at some good places, but the most enjoyable part of my life was when I was 25 working 30 hours a week making $100/hour. Overtime? Sure, if you pay me. I did that for something like a year before the Job That You Don’t Turn Down worked its way to me, but until that offer I was very, very happy doing what I did.
I’ve been an independent consultant for the last 8 years or so, and in that time, I’ve only been ‘unemployed’ for a total of about 5 months, so it doesn’t always mean the same thing.
Just saying is all 8)
one good way to duplicate the experience of using solaris is to strike yourself in the hips repeatedly with a vinyl cholostomy bag filled with lead flapjacks
As a DBA, I love solaris. It’s by far the most mature platform for enterprise oracle.
Maybe your company just isn’t willing to pay competitive rates. You said yourself you’ve been looking for a long time. I don’t think those numbers are out of line for the right person, but I don’t have much experience with the market in your area.
Yeah, but it’s also a bit of a dinosaur. Linux is where the future is at baby :D
Of course I haven’t played with Solaris for a few years so it’s probably improved nicely in the interim.
So, bleeding edge, how did you make out in the interview?
Not too bad actually. I didn’t get the job, but I think that was due more to the fact that they had 30 people interviewing for 10 positions then my inexperience. Oh well, back to the search.
And thanks to everyone for all the advice!