Database Developer

Definition - What does Database Developer mean?

A database developer is an IT professional responsible for working on database technologies. Where database administrators are more focused on routine maintenance and support for an existing database setup, database developers tend to focus more on improving databases, expanding their range or functionality, or otherwise developing submissions for a company's IT architecture.

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Techopedia explains Database Developer

A database developer may develop new applications for database, or convert existing legacy applications to work with a database setup.

The database developer may make decisions like choosing programming languages for a development project, making sure that new projects adhere to rules on how databases handle data, and creating interfaces between databases and database tools.

One thing facing database developers is the innovation that’s happened in the common design of database systems. Where the traditional relational database often consisted of rigidly structured data with various conventional archiving techniques, new different kinds of databases handle radically different data structures: a class of database designs called NoSQL deals with data that are not formulaically table-structured, as in traditional relational databases.

Many databases now are being built to handle relatively raw or unorganized data. This changes the job of a database developer and makes it more complex. In general, database developers will work alongside database administrators and other database and network professionals to understand the context of an IT system -- what its constraints and limitations are, what the end-user problems are in the field, how to improve and expand the architecture, and other top-level issues with the use of database designs within a company.