Database Administrator (DBA)

Credible resume terms

Terms that should plausibly appear on a real Database Administrator (DBA) resume. “Must-have” marks the ones whose total absence is a genuine red flag.

• Database Administrator (DBA)

  The person responsible for keeping a company's databases running, safe and fast: installing and upgrading them, backups and restores, security and access, performance tuning and high availability.

• SQLMust-have

  The standard language for querying and managing data in relational databases.

• Oracle Database

  The long-standing commercial database behind many banks, telecoms, governments and large enterprises.

• Microsoft SQL Server

  Microsoft's relational database, the default partner for .NET applications and common across enterprises.

• PostgreSQL

  A widely used, open-source relational database known for reliability and advanced features.

• MySQL

  A widely used open-source relational database, common in web applications.

• Backup & Recovery (Veeam, Commvault)Must-have

  Copying a company's servers, databases and files on a schedule so they can be restored after deletion, corruption, hardware failure or ransomware.

• Database High Availability (RAC, Always On)

  Ways to keep a database running when a server or a whole site fails: clusters where several servers share one database (Oracle RAC), standby copies kept in sync and ready to take over (Oracle Data Guard, SQL Server Always On, PostgreSQL with Patroni), and the switch-over itself, called failover.

• Replication

  Keeping copies of a database's data on multiple servers, so reads can be spread across copies and the system stays available if one server fails.

• Query OptimizationMust-have

  The process of rewriting a database query or adjusting a database's structure so a slow query runs faster, often by reducing how much data it has to scan.

• Database Indexing

  A technique for speeding up how a database finds data, similar to an index in the back of a book, at the cost of extra storage and slower writes.

• Linux Administration (RHEL)

  Running Linux servers day to day: installing and patching, managing users, storage and services, hardening security, and troubleshooting when things break.

Database Administrator (DBA): screening questions

One question per core skill, must-haves first. Each term’s page shows what a junior and a senior answer sound like.

1. Query Optimization

   “Walk me through how you diagnosed a slow query — did you look at its execution plan?”

2. Backup & Recovery (Veeam, Commvault)

   “When did you last restore from backup for real, and how long did it take compared with what the business expected?”

3. SQL

   “Walk me through the last complex SQL query you wrote — what problem was it solving?”

4. Database High Availability (RAC, Always On)

   “Tell me about a database failover you ran or lived through. How long did it take, and was any data lost?”

5. Oracle Database

   “Did you work on the Oracle database itself (performance, backups) or write code against it?”

Adjacent, but not real signal

These read as related, but they don’t tell you this candidate can do this job — they usually belong to one of the roles below.

• ETL

  The process of pulling data from source systems, cleaning/reshaping it, and loading it into a destination like a data warehouse.

• ORM

  A library that lets developers work with database data using their programming language's objects, instead of writing raw SQL (e.g. Prisma, SQLAlchemy, Hibernate).

• Data Pipeline

  An automated series of steps that moves data from one system to another, often cleaning or transforming it along the way.

Most often confused with

• Data Engineer

  Builds and maintains the pipelines and infrastructure that move data reliably — batch and streaming, usually with Spark, Airflow and Kafka feeding a warehouse or lakehouse. The plumbing every other data role depends on.

• System Administrator

  Keeps a company's servers and core IT services running: Windows and Linux servers, Active Directory, virtualization, backups, storage and Microsoft 365. Runs and fixes existing systems more than it automates new ones, which is where it differs from DevOps.

Database Administrator (DBA): search strings