There’s exciting news about Ulf Sandberg starting up a new MySQL services company.  I respect Ulf tremendously – he’s a great guy with good business sense.  That said, others have suggested that staff from the MySQL Support team need a new home – an assertion that simply is untrue.  MySQL Support has a great home at Oracle, and here’s why:

• Nobody is closer to the development of MySQL than Oracle’s MySQL Support Team.  We work for the same company, share resources and knowledge, communicate directly.  We’ve had Support staff move to Development, and had Development staff move to Support.
• Nobody is better qualified to support the broad needs of MySQL users on a daily basis.  We hire expert-level, experienced staff for Support, and we don’t do “tiered support”.   With a broad range of products to support and services to offer (MySQL Server to Cluster, ODBC to NDB API connectors, WorkBench to command-line clients, file system optimization to schema design, installation help to stack trace analysis), it takes all types to provide a cohesive, one-stop support shop.  We have that.
• Never has the owner of MySQL been more committed to – and capable of – delivering on the needs of customers.
• MySQL is now backed by the resources, stability and commitment of Oracle.

Yes, it is true we’ve lost staff over the past year.  The good news is that we’re developing and hiring more such staff, and you may have what it takes to be one!  It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s stable, and – at the end of the day – it’s a good for a career.  While it’s always hard to see senior staff move on, I’m extremely proud to see the skills they honed in MySQL Support put to use in service of companies like Facebook.

So, if you are an experienced MySQL DBA, who loves working with people and drawing on a wide range of technical skills to solve challenging problems, and wants the chance to take your career to the next level, consider applying today (note: link is to US-based position, but we are hiring elsewhere, too – email me at todd[dot]farmer[at]oracle[dot]com for details)!