In my experience c++ position pay well since you are part of the revenue stream instead of the cost stream. You are often building software that is sold to other businesses.

@kyleb,

DBA's? BI developers? Mind saying what those are?

DBA -> Database Administrators

BI -> Business Intelligence.

DBA: Database admins

BI developers: Business Intelligence developers

Both seem interesting but I've seen conflicting opinions on whether they'll be offshored/taken over by computers or not.

Of course "ZOMG OFFSHORING" seems to crop up for virtually every single technological profession I look into. Not sure which ones it's more applicable too but nobody wants to enter a field they won't be able to work in in 5 years, so I understand the sky-is-falling mentality.

Edit: Damn, got me by 5 mins lol

Seems unlikely. Both of these positions require a lot of planning and maintenance, which is a good spot to be in for a human. You also need to interface with suits often if you're a BI developer, which is a bad fit for outsourced people (and computers).

We're trying to hire a DBA and some BI/strategy people. Can't find anyone remotely qualified.

Mind pming me the ad for the BI position? I talk to suits daily (and wear one some days ), do native and managed code and wouldn't mind a raise.

What do you suggest for getting in the field? Where should one start? What are some useful resources?

How'd you settle on the number 90k? If you got a job for 50k, would that not be worth it for you?

Do what you love and the money will follow..

Can someone suggest Business Intelligence related resources?

BI is quite hard to self-learn (I guess one of the reasons why it's hard to find good people) - you need enterprise sized datasets to work with and a lot of the tools that are used can cost a lot of $$.

That being said, the best starting point for a BI developer would be getting familiar with Data Warehouse design patterns. Ralph Kimball's dimensional model would be considered the most common methodology that people try to follow.

The best way to break into the field would probably be to learn SQL and data warehouse design, start as a database/data warehouse developer where you'd develop scripts to transfer data from multiple source systems into a central repository, and from there move into BI where you'd start to analyze the data and build reports/dashboards/models.

I agree 100%. The skills to start are not that difficult (familiarity with SQL and data) and after that you will probably need to learn on the job. You probably don't have a 100tb data warehouse with Cognos at home.

Best thing to do is probably do an intense refresher of statistics
Then it's just data+SQL and the usual datawarehouse/datamart/cubes/ETL/visualization whathaveu stuff.

For pet projects to learn you can usually find decently sized datasamples of sports and so forth and experiment with that. But anything coming even close to what you'd work on in the real world won't be easy to find.
If all else fails you can always create TBs of fairly random (or more intelligent) data via a script

If you want to make money in software development, contracting is the way to go. In London rates for "commodity" developers start at about 300 GBP/day. Once you get quite good you can achieve 500+.

I'm a BI contractor (data modelling / ETL / SQL/MDX/cubes) and I can tell you that 90K GBP PA is very, very achievable in that niche if you're contracting.

As some of the other posters said, BI is not very easy to self-learn, and requires "soft skills" for the best rates as well as purely technical skills. You need to be a good business analyst, be good at communicating, write coherent documentation etc. to make the top rates in BI. If you're purely a techie, you're better off learning C#/C++ inside out and going to one of the banks to become a quant or something like that. Probably better money in that at the highest echelons ultimately, but it's not my field so I don't know for sure.

Being able to work with TBs of data is not the only, or even primary skillset you need to become good at BI. Not many companies have those sorts of data volumes, but almost every company with 200+ employees has a need for some sort of BI. I've worked in the industry for 10 years and the largest data volume I've had to work with on a deployment is around 50GB.

Any resources on the subject for beginners?
Thanks in advance!

The easiest ways to make a ton of money:
1) work for google, facebook, microsoft, apple, etc. they pay on avg $130K. see glassdoor.com

2) get US security clearance. these guys make bank. you'll probably be working for a defense contractor. you can get a lot of cool jobs in text mining since they read everyone's email (not a joke).

3) work in NYC finance. they actually do use C++ if that's what floats your boat.

Also, any programmer with about 7+ years of experience should be making $90K. And $90K is standard in the bay area where cost of living sucks. I make upwards of that doing Java consulting.

#2 is most true I'd say. If you're eligible for the good clearances and you're qualified, you'll write your own ticket right now.

I think there was a study recently that showed #1 was basically true (I think the average was actually like $120K).

As for the salary - very dependent on where you live. But in NYC you'll get well over 90K with 7+ years of experience.

#1 isn't *easy* though. It's true that if you manage it, you'll get the bucks. But for those jobs you're competing on the open market.

#2 is a much easier path if you can get the clearance.

But 90k does not go very far in NYC. At least that is what everyone says.

Definitely a fair point about #1 not being easy.

90K goes far enough in NYC. I lived off it (and less) without any problems. Obviously though it goes less far than most other places.

I'd never do #2 due to ethical concerns.

Are you high?

I think that is spot on. It's quite a bit harder than making 90k programming. It is most certainly more stressfull and (imo) more boring.