It's time to get some certifications...
I'm working in the same company for 5 years. During that time I gained a lot of experience: self study/training on the job... or rather training on the front line where only expectation is to extinguish the fire by adding unqualified resource to place where problem occurred.
However I had no certifications sponsored by my employer. Sounds simple: for my employee the skills are important but certificates are not. Certified employee = expensive employee.
Conclusion: I need to pay for the certificates myself and ask myself if I'm working in the correct place.
Training path:
I see 2 possible clear directions: JAVA and Oracle database administration. The first one is difficult to get as my experience with JAVA is minimal.
Unfortunately there is no clear PL/SQL certification path. Instead you would find path to ApEx and similar things.
Of course there are plenty other options... and not only Oracle... but it sounds stupid to leave area that you were working for years and in which other are calling you "the expert"... wouldn't it be stupid?
So my decision is: DBA.
Next question: OCA or OCP? This stands for Oracle Certified Associate and Oracle Certified Professional.
My colleagues (they certified in the JAVA path though) told me that OCA is targeted rather for non-technical people like managers, people supporting product maintenance, etc. while not giving that much to professionals like me.
Decision: OCP.
I have worked a lot with Oracle 10.2G but not with 11G thus 1Z0-043 exam would match me better.
The thing is that I was always working with development while this DBA path is about administration.
As for today I'm going to learn about Oracle 11G administration thus my exam would be 1Z0-053 and it costs 195$ (640PLN) as for today.
Education... I need to get some materials. Training costs something like my monthly salary so that is not an option for a parent / breadwinner.
Cheaper option is to buy some book. I found one and it costs ~50$ on Amazon. Cool - but Amazon works great in US... in Poland there are still some issues. Let's check our local retailer empik... the book costs over 100$ !!! So Amazon sounds like a better idea.
And there is another option, too. To get an e-book. Illegal source would be free while I wouldn't feel well that way.
But there is another option :) Safari online... My corporation is paying for the access (we were even told we cost too much because of that... and we were not really using it as this information was not given to the new employees) so that is a good time to use it.
