RE: Remote DBA
- From: "Matthew Zito" <mzito@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Guillermo Alan Bort" <cicciuxdba@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:25:31 -0400
Well, the technical interview is a requirement for me (are there interviews
where you're not supposed to evaluate their technical skill, except when
someone else that you trust has already done so?).
And we pretty much require references, however, it's always the last step
before we make an offer, and we only check references if we're mostly convinced
they're the right hire (i.e. if we're iffy on you, we would never use
references to try to make up the difference). And we always let the candidate
provide the names at their convenience, and talk to people in advance, and
schedule things based on the references' schedules, etc. We know providing and
being references is complicated and annoying, and hence we try to make sure we
do it sparingly, and at everyone's but our convenience.
As far as who works really well in those remote situations, I think it's two
kinds of people (my mental nicknames for them):
- "ticket closers"
- "lone rangers"
Ticket closers are operational folks who just have a knack and discipline for
working through issues one by one. They don't get caught down the rabbit hole
on a low-importance issue and spend six hours on it, nor do they try to tackle
a job way above their pay grade and waste three days before asking for help -
they triage, address as best they can, escalate or ask for help if necessary,
then close and move on. Having these folks on your team is great, because they
can help make sure the issue churn is addressed - they won't be designing the
long-term strategic plans for 2011, but they'll keep the wheels on the bus.
Lone rangers are people who you can give a big problem to, and turn them loose,
and just wait for them to come back. Usually senior team members in targeted
roles, you say things like, "Hey, we need to figure out how we're going to be
doing DR once we migrate off the EMC platform in 2011", and off they go. Sure,
you'll get emails, and draft documents, and be invited to conference calls, but
they are really just keeping you apprised of what's going on - if you left them
alone, they'd still come out with generally the same report at the end.
In both cases, the key thing is that neither type of person requires
immediate/direct handholding, the kind that requires being able to walk over to
the other person's desk and talking face-to-face whenever anything crops up. I
worked with a person years ago who was very bright, but you had to keep your
eye on them, or else you'd find that the problem they'd set out to solve at
11am on Monday had morphed into another problem they'd noticed along the way on
Tuesday, and come Wednesday, the second problem was about 20% solved, and the
first problem had been forgotten in the shuffle. Those sort of people are the
kind who do poorly in remote environments, as well as people who require
frequent/constant feedback on how they're doing.
As far as how to tell the difference in an interview - I think the references
are the best. You ask questions about how much oversight people require, what
sort of problems they enjoyed doing vs. others, what their attention span was
like, etc. etc.
Matt
-----Original Message-----
From: alanbort@xxxxxxxxx on behalf of Guillermo Alan Bort
Sent: Sun 9/26/2010 6:44 PM
To: Matthew Zito
Cc: kerry.osborne@xxxxxxxxxxx; oracle-l-freelists
Subject: Re: Remote DBA
Well, my concern is that if you are hiring someone from another country it's
hard to measure their exprience. I've often found it hard to assess someone's
experience in an interview (in those annoying interviews where we are not
supposed to evaluate the technical skill of the interviewee) based just on
general questions. I've also had the other kind of interviews, where I can ask
anything I want and get a good idea of their skill and whether it's plausible
they have the experience they state in their resume.
Conducting a proper technical interview is a very good option, and references
are not always possible, I usually don't put them in my resume and if I am
asked for references then I specifically tell contact my references and ask for
their permission to supply their contact, so this takes one or two days.
What makes the right kind of person for work from home? How do you evaluate
this in an interview (remote or otherwise)?
cheers
Alan.-
On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 6:46 PM, Matthew Zito <mzito@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Oh, I hit send too soon. Of course, you expect that you have to verify
the experience of the person you're talking to. If they can't verify
employment, pass tech interviews, have professional references, etc., it's a
non-starter.
But if you can do those things, it's possible to have the right kind of
people be able to work from home.
Matt
--
Matthew Zito
Chief Scientist
GridApp Systems
P: 646-452-4090
mzito@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.gridapp.com
-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Kerry Osborne
Sent: Sun 9/26/2010 5:42 PM
To: cicciuxdba@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: oracle-l-freelists
Subject: Re: Remote DBA
No.
I wouldn't hire anyone whose experience I couldn't verify. I've hired
several people I haven't met in person though. Skype works pretty well.
Kerry Osborne
Enkitec
blog: kerryosborne.oracle-guy.com
On Sep 26, 2010, at 4:27 PM, Guillermo Alan Bort wrote:
> Hi List,
>
> I've been reading a lot about remote DBA services, these appear
to be companies based on different locations that provide customers with DBA
services while having all the DBAs physically in one location (or a limited
number of locations). These services are usually hired by companies whose
primary focus isn't IT.
>
> My question now is...would this work in reverse? Having several
DBAs working out of their own homes in whatever city or country they want for a
single company (or for one of the remote DBA services)? I understand the
complexities of having people without Green Cards or working VISAS working for
US based companies, even if they are now physically in the US.
>
> This one may be for recruiters or decision makers: Would you hire
somebody you've never met (or met only by phone) who lives in another country
(worst case) and whose experience you can't verify if they asked for half of
what an on-site DBA would?
>
> Thanks in advance
> Alan.-
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