I once applied for a "database admin" job at one of the big credit card companies. The job description was basically "run all our Oracle databases" and the salary was in the mid 2 millions USD, but I assumed that figure was typo'ed or something ( an extra 0 maybe?)

In the interview I learned that there was no typo and it was to be one of the seven people on the planet that run the databases for this credit card processor. They said "if the database goes down then we are losing billions of dollars a minute".

Anyways I didn't get the job, but they're not all underpaid.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Fuck that job I would probably get stomach cancer from all the stress

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It really wouldn't be all that bad. If they're dropping $2m/y on a database admin, then their BCDR plan must be rock solid with crazy fault tolerances. I'd imagine outages are extremely rare.

But, if they're dropping that kind of money, you'd have to be an expert in the field. Or know someone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

$2m is enough to pay for chemotherapy

[–] noli 17 points 11 months ago

Flipping burgers is enough to pay for chemotherapy. Src: am european

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Yeah I had convinced myself that I would only do it for a year and be able to retire much much sooner.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago

Given how much the shareholders are skimming off the top, $2Mil for a critical database engineer is cheap.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

If you labor there's only two ways you get paid your full worth: you own the means of your production or your boss is a chump. However much the job pays, you are going to have a larger impact than your salary (hopefully).