Chapter 40 — Exercises (Career)

Reflective and practical exercises to launch the next step. The "deliverables" here are your career artifacts — there are no appendix answers. ⭐ = stretch.

Group A — Paths & fit

40.1 Describe the four core database career paths (DBA, database developer, data engineer, data architect) in one sentence each. Which appeals most to you, and why?

40.2 For your target path, list the skills it emphasizes and map each to the chapter(s) where you learned it.

40.3 ⭐ Research three real job postings for your target role. What skills/keywords recur? Which do you already have from this book?

Group B — Present your skills

40.4 Write the "Skills" and "Projects" sections of a résumé that feature your database abilities and link your capstone.

40.5 Write a 3-minute spoken walkthrough of your capstone for an interview: a design decision + a slow-query fix + a scaling thought.

40.6 ⭐ Prepare answers to the four interview question types: write SQL (a window-function query), design (model a domain), performance (this query is slow — what do you do?), trade-offs (which database, and why?).

Group C — Interview practice

40.7 Without looking: write a query for "the top 3 products by revenue in each category" (window function + wrap-and-filter). (Ch. 12)

40.8 A teammate's query does a Seq Scan on a 50M-row table fetching 10 rows. Walk through your diagnosis and fix out loud. (Ch. 23–24)

40.9 ⭐ "Why did you choose PostgreSQL?" — answer using the decision framework (Ch. 37) in under a minute.

Group D — Keep learning

40.10 Pick your next learning step (internals, data engineering tooling, distributed systems, AI/vector) and find one concrete resource to start.

40.11 ⭐ Subscribe to / bookmark one ongoing source (PostgreSQL release notes, a community blog, Designing Data-Intensive Applications) and schedule time for it.

Group E — Reflect

40.12 List five things you can do now that you couldn't before this book.

40.13 Which of the book's six themes resonated most, and how will you apply it?

40.14 ⭐ Write your one-sentence professional pitch: "I'm someone who can ______ with databases."

Self-check. If you have a résumé linking a capstone you can walk through, can answer the four interview question types, and have a next learning step — you're ready to take database skills into a career. Go build things that last.