The majority of my career I have worked exclusively with SQL Server, and I had very little interest in branching out to other engines. Why would I? SQL Server is the best, hands down. Period.
As I had done a few times prior... My time with my current company had run its course and I was moving on to something new. It was a late stage startup who had great success with their first application and were getting ready to start app V2.0 with Azure SQL as the database backend. Their legacy software was running on postgreSQL, but that was not going to be my responsibility.... They had hired a consulting company to support it.
A few DAYS in, Im working around the other operations folks in the company and you can just feel the stress, the legacy app is a performance nightmare. It didn't take long to discover it all seemed to be database related. Massive seemingly random CPU spikes, mitigated by turning portions of the app off... The general vibe was that "this is how it is", which drove me insane! With V2.0 in its infancy.... my boss didn't mind if I allocated some time to poke around to see if I could find anything with the postgreSQL database. So of course I dove head first into the weeds. I became just as obsessed with postgreSQL as I was with SQL Server early in my career. Everything was a thrill again and I was reading every page of postgreSQL documentation and shredding through forums from 8 years ago. It took a-lot of teamwork and long nights but i'm happy to say that the legacy app's database was eventually running like a dream and no longer a company wide scapegoat for anything wrong.
That same company, through various acquisitions, gave me the opportunity to work with MySQL and MongoDB..... and of course good ole SQL Server! Each product giving me a slightly different perspective and teaching me different ways of doing things.
Specializing in a single product is extremely common in this field, and for good reason. The engines we work with are extremely complicated and take years of hands on experience to master. But that doesn't mean you have to limit yourself to just one... Have your "bread and butter", but take a look at what else is out there too. Get out of your comfort zone, keep learning, you never know what opportunities it will bring!
-Matt
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