What Does a Database Programming Professional Do?

Important Facts About Database Programming Professionals

Job Duties

Database programming professionals, also referred to as database programmers or database administrators, protect the information stored in a database. Daily responsibilities typically fall into one of three categories: database maintenance, data processing, or programming.

Maintenance

Database programming professionals spend most of their time providing technical support and working on maintaining the DB. They maintain existing applications and develop new ones. They perform data maintenance and troubleshoot and fix problems. They may be responsible for data recovery after a disaster, backups, upgrades, and job scheduling. Database programmers' duties can include support for clients, end users, and other team members.

Data Processing

A database programmer imports data files provided by the client into the database. Data may have to be validated, edited, and formatted. They write scripts, procedures, or queries in SQL (structured query language). They are responsible for updating the database on a regular basis to guarantee data integrity and for performing checks for quality assurance.

Programming

A company may be in the business of creating applications or programs i.e. games, which use databases. In this instance, a database programmer would be responsible for creating and implementing a customized database to be used by the application. They would also write the code that allows the application to interact with the database.

Salary Info and Job Outlook

According to PayScale.com, the majority of database analysts and programmers earn between $51,000 and $115,000 a year, as of October 2022. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, www.bls.gov) projects that the employment of database administrators will likely grow by about 9% between 2021 and 2031, a rate much faster than the average predicted for all occupations.