Tag Archives: sql

TSQL Tuesday #189: How is AI changing our careers

This month’s TSQL Tuesday invite is from my good friend, long standing MVP and community volunteer Taiob Ali – Taiob’s call is to blog on how AI, (the biggest invention since the internet, according to some) is changing our careers.

The place I work is passionate about AI adoption. We are exploring many tools in that regard. I may not be able to share details of exact usage for privacy reasons. These are my personal experiences.

How I use it personally

I have not played with many AI tools. I use a paid version of ChatGPT, which I find helpful for the following reasons.

1 To generate small amounts of test data for demo and other reasons. It is very good at this – especially if I can provide table(s) and ask it to generate Insert statements.
2 To review my blog post and ask for suggestions on English, or if it matches the tone I have in mind.
3 For occasional art generation – such as some thank you card logos for events like SQL Saturday. I have had some experiences there that I can blog about separately.
4 For simplifying complex text in research papers – I must read a lot of research papers for school, and sometimes the language is too hard for me to follow. So, I ask for help with one paragraph at a time. It is not capable of condensing all of it. By the way, it gets worse with more data, and it has little memory for what you asked earlier. Even with these limitations, it can be helpful.
5 For assistance with R Programming. Maybe because R is an open-source product, the help you can get is fantastic and saves you hours. I do not cut and paste any code; I ask it specific questions like ‘how do I increase font on legend with this scatterplot’.

My experience so far is that it is another tool in my toolkit. While I have not had transformative experiences yet, it has proven to be helpful in my daily work. I also have thoughts on ethical challenges and concerns with mental health that it causes.
For my own sanity – I do not address it or talk to it like a person. Nor do I engage in experiments like some do – like debate it on what it says or try to get some cool answer they can share on social media about it. It is strongly ‘it’ to me, not a person with reasoning skills or feelings.

Some of the links that I have found helpful in that regard are below.

Resources that I recommend.

Harvard neuroscientist Dr Srini Pillay’s interview on balanced usage of AI, with warnings on the impact on the brain if used too much. This is not a pro or anti AI talk – it is very pragmatic and eye-opening on how much and why we need to use these tools. Dr Pillay explains how to find balance in the confusing world we are in by using AI appropriately and paving the way for healthy, innovative outcomes.

A research study shared by my colleague Mark Wilkinson found that AI does not necessarily improve productivity among programmers. This study is based on a small sample of programmers and has interesting findings related to higher productivity.

Stack Overflow 2025 survey results related to AI – of particular interest is the # of people using it at work, challenges with trust, AI tools versus AI agent usage. Also has a dataset we can use to explore further – the largest dataset of developer opinions available.

Long-time SQL Server MVP and data scientist Kevin Feasel, who is my go-to guy for all things data science related, wisely pointed out that Generative AI is hardly the only form of AI. It is easy to forget this critical fact, given that the term AI is used to refer to just generative AI these days. Here is a blog post teaching us about other forms of AI.

Ethical considerations

Last but hardly least, there are lots of ethical issues surrounding AI. My humble research using Stack Overflow data from last year (still a work in progress) is here.
I follow an Australian researcher named Kate Crawford, who has written a fantastic book called ‘Atlas of AI’. She highlights what goes into AI in the form of environmental resources, cheap labor, and many other factors. She also has many talks on YouTube that are worth listening to.

Data Platform MVP and longtime volunteer/mentor Eugene Meidinger has a great post on AI Ethics about Power BI. I loved one of his quotes – to always paste ‘into’ it and not ‘out of ‘it.

Conclusion

All of this said, AI is a game-changer, like it or not. There are basically two strong stances about its future – one that thinks it will die down, if not go away, because of how much garbage goes into it over time, and the second that says it will pave the way for a new future. Most of us are, safe to say, in the middle and confused about where we are going to land with it. My own stance – use it limitedly, stay informed and rely on educated resources, be open to possibilities, and stay grounded in your ethical stances.

Thank you Taiob, for hosting.

TSQL Tuesday #188 Growing community

I am responding late to a T-SQL Tuesday invite from John Sterrett. John’s call is about various ways to grow young data community/speakers.

I’m going to take a brief detour to talk about what held us together as a community over the past two decades.

We worked on a fantastic product – Microsoft SQL Server. It was thriving, growing in leaps and bounds. Each new release brought exciting features that sparked dialogues, blog posts and in-depth conversations. Jobs were plentiful if you had expertise in even one area of this vast product. We referred each other for job roles, building strong professional ties.

We saw each other often – at SQL Saturdays, PASS Summit, and other events. Between 2005 and 2018, I averaged about five events per year. We saw familiar faces and had plenty to talk about: the latest release, what worked and what didn’t, who’s hiring, who’s moving where. PASS had its fair share of politics, which added to the chatter. Twitter/X was our central hub – we knew who was attending events, where the after-parties were, and whose blogs to follow.

Then came COVID. Many of us shifted to working from home. PASS dissolved, giving way to smaller, independent or Azure-linked user groups. Some disappeared entirely. Event funding dropped and never really bounced back. SQL Server matured – still solid, but with fewer shiny new features. Twitter/X changed hands and tone, becoming more political, pushing many, even long-time influencers, away.

Meanwhile, job descriptions changed. SQL Server expertise wasn’t enough. Employers now ask for Postgres, Python, CI/CD, and more.

My late friend Brian Moran used to say that as we age, our “outer circle” gets bigger, while our “inner circle” – those we truly trust – shrinks. I found this painfully true during COVID. Pre-COVID, I had a long list of people to catch up with at events. Post-COVID, I realized many were just contacts. I don’t come from a culture that views friendship as transactional. That, combined with the discovery that many people didn’t care as much as I thought they did, left me in a difficult place.

Why didn’t they care? Partly because the West tends to treat relationships transactionally. And partly because the reasons for our interactions – events, jobs, shared tools – weren’t there anymore.

So what’s next? Is this the end of what we call “community”? I hope not.

In these tougher years, I’ve made new friends among younger speakers. I’ve learned how to support them – and be supported in return. Here are a few things that helped me:

  • Actively seek out and befriend new faces. Podcasts like Finding Data Friends by Ben Weissman and Jess Pomfret are great starting points. LinkedIn is another good space. Remember – tech today is much broader than SQL Server. I follow blogs on diversity, mental health, analytics, AI, and more.
  • Attend at least one event per year. If that’s not feasible, join a local user group. If that’s still tough, try a virtual event. I’m lucky to still attend PASS Summit and local meetups when I can.
  • Show genuine interest in people. COVID taught me that conversations based solely on tech or politics are fleeting. Regardless of cultural norms, people crave authentic connection. Ask how someone is doing – and mean it.

What’s positive about today’s community?

  • There’s far more diversity now.
  • Conversations feel smoother – even without shared tech or politics.
  • The younger generation is self-aware, clear on what works for them, and eager to extract value from their contributions.

Lots to learn, even for an old geek like me.

So, to answer John’s question about how to grow community: find what already exists, and participate – however you can. Real growth comes from real human connection.

Thank you, John, for hosting.

PASS Summit 2024 – A new experience

I attended the PASS Data Community Summit held in Seattle in person this year after a long gap of 4 years and after RedGate software took over running the summit.

The place I work at had stopped paying for in-person training – making it an expensive decision to attend if I wanted to. I had not submitted to speak or planned on attending until about August when my boss found a backlog of unused vacation I had and needed to use before the year ended. I had plenty of vacation, was also able to secure airline tickets based on my points, got affordable Airbnb accommodation close to the convention center, and booked a trip to India after the summit. In short, it was meant to happen, and it did.

Some specific observations are as below.

1. The new convention center was an amazing location. The distance to classrooms was optimal and not a hike like at the older place. It was a modern building with several areas to sit around, and network, and huge glass panes let in sunlight. It made for a great experience.


2 RedGate did an amazing job with organizing. Everything was very smooth, starting with registration. There were many opportunities to network, even if one was not a party or late-night person. Coffee and tea were set up all day until 5 p.m. Friday.
3 The ‘Experts’ clinic, which replaced MSFT’s SQL clinic, was staffed by MVPs/consultants and seemed a huge success. People lined up all day and seemed to get the answers they needed.
4 There were many case study presentations—moves to AWS/Azure seemed to make for several.
5. I was invited to one of several closed-door discussions on tech careers, managing data in the cloud, and other topics. Several people expressed frustrations about hasty moves to the cloud and how much they cost their company. Some felt these costs were passed down as pay cuts and low salaries. I was also selected to be interviewed by Louis Davidson, one of my #sqlheroes and among the senior community members I look up to. It was a great conversation.
6 The ‘community zone’ was set up away from dining rooms and classrooms, making it a place specifically for people to hang out and engage in conversation. It worked amazingly well. There were informal sessions here, too—I got to do one on mentoring and community with my good friend Chris Yates and greatly enjoyed it. There were sessions on hobbies and various fun activities here, too.


7 Very few MSFT employees were present on site. Several took time to drive in to meet friends on their own. I was very touched personally that they took time for me. I hope the formal presence of MSFT will improve at future summits; if not, the conference will take on a very different shape. For the first time in history, the new SQL server version was not announced at the Summit.
8 RedGate put up a Postgres conference in the same venue for half the cost. Both conferences shared the vendor area. It was a good move and made it possible for me to meet some amazing people – particularly Adam Machanic, one of my sqlheroes, and Karen Schuler, my good friend and long time community volunteer from Louisville.


9 I had a list of newer folks in the community whom I wanted to meet. I ended up meeting many more. It was a positive experience, and I felt good about the future of the community—although it would be very different from the one I was used to.

Observations not directly related to summit

1. Many people I talked to felt confused and worried about the job market. SQL Server, as a hardcore technical skill, seemed less in demand, although it is very much around. The ‘other’ skills needed were spread over a wide spectrum, ranging from NoSQL Platforms to AI technologies. The pay was much lower than five years ago, and in-person work is primarily expected.

2 Several people felt that SQL Server as product was not getting as much love from MSFT compared to Fabric and AI. What that means for us career wise remains to be seen and to me , strongly related to how many years of work one has ahead before retirement. It is, for sure, time to adapt and learn a lot more stuff.

3 The loss of Twitter/X as the main networking platform was felt and missed deeply. The only social event I attended personally was the RedGate volunteer party. I had lunches/dinners with several friends in private and headed home early on most nights. Granted, this was a choice for me – but one did not even know of other social events, formal or informal, because there wasn’t a platform to communicate as a community any more.

4 Grant Fritchey talks of his word of choice to describe the year as ‘fragmented’. That would be my choice, too – especially with the community. Many people we used to hang out with have retired, moved on to doing other work, and many have intentionally limited their contacts. I realize that the ‘glue’ that kept us friends was community politics, common technology (SQL Server), and the many in-person events where we used to see each other – before 2020. The politics is different now. The technology has expanded to many other platforms, and in-person events are drastically low. That, combined with losing X, leads to a highly fragmented community.

I missed the older, bigger crowd – but the friends who sought me out and who I have now are those who want to stay in touch because they value me as a person over politics/technology/and other common talk topics. In other words, the ‘real’ people I want in my life. That is nothing but a good thing.

I hope to attend PASS Summit 2025 to deepen a few existing friendships and make newer connections, as well as learn and share our concerns about where we are heading. I want to thank RedGate Software sincerely for making me feel welcome and helping me participate in many ways.