Help me get a Microsoft DB certification
July 15, 2014 11:32 AM   Subscribe

I want to get a Microsoft Database certification so I can become a database developer (I know some basic SQL using Postgres but I'd like to know more and get a certification). What's the best way to do this using a book instead of taking a class?

Here are my specific questions:

1) What specific book or package should I use to get this certification? The classes are bonkers expensive and I learn really well from books.

2) What's the best way to sign up for this test?

Bonus questions:

3) How do I get a job once I have this? Will someone hire me? If not, what else should I be doing to supplement this? I live in Washington, DC if that's relevant.

4) Anything else should I know? I really like databases and would like to move into this area but if this is the wrong way to do it or it will be unremunerative I'd rather know now.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl to Computers & Internet (2 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I got a MySQL cert from just book study. Typically there's an official testing guide you can get. The certificate authority (Microsoft in your case) should have links to test registration.

Once you have the cert, you get a job the same way you get other jobs, by talking to friends, networking, or responding to jobs postings.

I think the most important thing for you will be experience. Certification is *not* the same thing as experience. If this would be your first tech job, you're probably looking at an entry level gig at a larger company, or the cert gets you into a position at a much smaller company where you're in over your head and need to learn a lot very fast.

Both those options are tried and true.
posted by colin_l at 12:15 PM on July 15, 2014


I am but a fledgling ordinary developer myself, but what is this "database developer" role you speak of? As an ordinary developer on a product that has nothing to do with relational databases, I use SQL queries all the time, even if it's just looking at query logs that our service has uploaded.

That said, I did take a databases course, and the most useful project I had was one called ETL (extract, transform, load) -- we took some fictional flight data, put it into a database, and had to write queries to answer specific questions. Maybe you could do this yourself? e.g. download NYC's taxi cab data (http://www.andresmh.com/nyctaxitrips/), figure out how to stuff it into a DB, and answer some questions?

This would also allow you to learn web dev / data visualization skills, which are pretty hot right now. When you interview for the job, just let someone know that you're passionate about the backend and want to be as far away from pushing pixels as possible.
posted by batter_my_heart at 11:12 PM on July 15, 2014


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