Development's Ability: Data

Develops expertise in database administration, security, and strategy in our stack of PostgreSQL, Redshift, Algolia, Redis, Memcached, and whatever comes next.

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore believe they can employ this ability with only a small amount of guidance

• Writes simple queries (either directly or through library code) that return and update data effectively utilizing joins and selects.
• Adds columns to existing database tables or adds new tables using existing schema conventions.
• Uses transactions (such as Postgres’ BEGIN/COMMIT or Redis’ MULTI/EXEC) to preserve atomicity when appropriate.
• Models data leveraging the most appropriate data types and relationships between existing data

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore believe they can employ this ability, with no assistance as well as being a trusted active or passive mentor to others

• Performs migrations and other database changes with zero impact to application performance or uptime.
• Identifies and addresses missing indexes and constraints to keep our data consistent and easy to query.
• Has a strong understanding of how our database tools work and shares that knowledge to improve others’ database use in code reviews (e.g. seeks and shares insights about query performance and optimization via EXPLAIN results).
• Models entire domains using single table inheritance, polymorphism, and other advanced modeling techniques with assistance from others
• Retrieves data in the most performant and efficient way by minimizing n+1 queries

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to multiple squads when wielding this ability, and therefore believe they can employ this ability as well as being considered an expert within this discipline

• Identifies queries that consistently underperform and updates them to reduce strain and response times in the database.
• Identifies and ushers adoption of systems that detect and proactively alert us to potential database issues (like strong_migrations)
• Models entire domains using single table inheritance, polymorphism, and other advanced modeling techniques with little or no assistance
• Retrieves data utilizing recursion and common table expressions (views, stored procs)

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore believe they can not only employ this ability, but we trust them to set the tone for this at the company level

• Spearheads monumental database changes with minimal negative impact (like customer-level data segregation)
• Assists team members with complex data issues

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to not just internal teams but the community/industry in general when wielding this ability, and they are recognized by the industry as an expert

• Develops new database technologies to serve Lessonly’s needs.