Efficient database management is crucial to every company that offers digital products.
For your clients, it guarantees easy and smooth access to your services.
For your internal teams, it means accurate reports and forecasting which has a direct impact on your results.
To make sure your data is stored securely, ready for requests 24/7, and always reliable, your best choice is to hire SQL developers. With the power of the SQL language and relevant database management tools, they can guarantee your data is accessible anytime, anywhere.
According to the 2020 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, SQL is the third most popular programming language, used by approximately 57% of professional developers. However, you should be aware that for most of these developers using SQL is only a small part of their work — a supplement to their core tasks. When you plan to hire SQL developers for the sake of professional database management or other data-focused projects, you should look for people truly expert in the technology.
How to find these experts, select the ones that fit your company and/or project best, and then onboard them smoothly? We examine these topics closely in our guide below.
The core hard skills of professional SQL developers
Like any other role in IT, being a SQL developer requires a set of technical skills. Without proficiency in specific technologies, proper database management is simply impossible and the process may end up being a failure that will bottleneck your company.
Because of this, make sure that when you hire SQL programmers, you choose the candidates with the following hard, technical skills…
- Expert understanding of SQL
Working with SQL highly differs from working with other languages. Unlike most of them, SQL is not object-oriented but set-oriented — meaning it requires a completely different approach to the whole process. Adding tables and columns is just the very basic part of operations possible with SQL. A big business project requires SQL developers to be able to reconstruct bad schemas into good ones, optimize the performance, partition tables, and much more. If possible, hire SQL developers who have worked on at least a few different projects so they understand the true complexities of the language.
- Experience with database management tools
For the best efficiency and results, SQL should be matched with a relevant database management tool. If you are already using one at your company, hire SQL developers with experience in this specific platform. However, if you haven’t chosen the platform yet, we recommend discussing your requirements with a software consultant or an IT project manager — they will be able to recommend the best solution for your needs. Popular choices include Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle MySQL, SQLite, and PostgreSQL.
- Proficiency in PL/SQL
An extension to the traditional SQL language. Especially important if you want to hire SQL developers to work with Oracle platforms as PL/SQL has been developed by Oracle and is used in their tools for increased efficiency. PL/pgSQL is the alternative for PostgreSQL.
- Proficiency in SQL reporting tools
The choice of these usually depends on the database management platform being used at the company. If you go with Microsoft SQL Server, you’ll most likely end up using another Microsoft tool, SQL Server Reporting Services. MySQL, on the other hand, is often combined with different reporting software from other providers — popular open-source options include Eclipse BIRT and Jasper.
- Experience with cloud platforms
All businesses that want to scale must include cloud platforms in their tech stack. Once again, when you want to hire SQL developers, choose those who have already experienced working on the platform of your choice. All popular cloud solutions (like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure) support SQL, making it easier for you to make your database future-proof.
- Understanding of NoSQL
Even if relational databases are your focus, you should consider hiring an SQL developer who has an understanding of operations on non-relational databases as well. It simply secures your business future in case you will decide for a transition later on. The language used for non-relational databases is NoSQL and popular tools used with it include MongoDB, DocumentDB, or Cassandra.
- Proficiency in other data-related languages
Whether it’s Python, R, or Java, knowledge of another language broadly used in the world of data expands your SQL developer’s capabilities and allows them to work on even more complex projects.
Some additional requirements might come into play if you want to hire SQL developers for more complex roles or projects in your company. For example, if you are looking for a Big Data expert, your candidate will also need to be proficient in technologies like Hadoop or Spark. To make sure your requirements are laid out clearly and they match your plans, we recommend you to align with a software consultant or an IT project manager.
The soft skills to focus on when hiring SQL programmers
Soft skills can be as important as the technical ones — especially when you hire SQL programmers to work in a broader team or closely with non-tech colleagues. To ensure the best performance and improve collaboration in such a case, look for SQL experts with the following set of soft skills…
- Attention to details
So your data is always reliable and provides great insights.
- Researcher attitude
So your SQL experts are always on top of the game and can incorporate innovations that make your product and business perform better.
- Expert time management
So everything is done always on time, even when an unexpected issue occurs.
What questions to ask when you hire SQL developers?
As the role of SQL developer requires a specific set of technical skills, running a job interview to review these skills is crucial. Remember, however, that such an interview should be prepared by a person experienced in SQL. If you do not possess such experience, we recommend asking for assistance from another SQL developer, a software consultant, or an IT project manager. They should be able to assist you during the interview and ask the right questions — like the ones we list below.
- When would you use the HAVING clause?
- Cross apply vs outer apply — what’s the difference between the two?
- What are the differences between left join and right join? What other types of joins are there?
- What is database normalization? Why is it performed?
- How does a clustered index work?
- What is parameter sniffing?
- What is a foreign key?
- What are columnstore indexes?
- What’s the difference between UNION and UNION ALL?
- What is NULLIF used for?
Leveraging the potential of the company fit
Skills are incredibly important when it comes to hiring SQL developers — but so is the experience. Every time you decide to hire SQL programmers, consider how well they fit your company. The better the match, the better the results, and the faster these results are achieved.
Consider especially the two following areas of company fit…
- Industry fit
Industry specialists have a deep understanding of unique data solutions your market may require. They have most likely already worked with the type of client you are targeting and know what kind of issues a business like yours might be encountering on the road success.
- Company culture fit
Along with a great set of soft skills, company culture fit guarantees that your new hire will collaborate well with their colleagues for the sake of your business. Choose the most important values that drive your company to success and review what’s your candidate’s attitude towards them. The list can include the approach to remote work, preferred style of management, experience with diverse teams, and much more.
Who else you may need to hire?
Hiring SQL developers is a great first step to establishing an effective data department for your product. But if you wish to leverage the power of data to the fullest, there are still a lot of other experts that you might want to include in your team, such as data scientists, data engineers, machine learning engineers, or AI experts.
Whatever type of data professionals you need, we can help you hire them fast. Our Ideamotive network of IT talents includes everyone from SQL developers and more specialized PostgreSQL experts to Big Data and AI experts. And we won’t connect you to just anyone — our team will make sure you are matched with people who truly match all your unique requirements and preferences.
