I'm mid career and currently titled as a Senior DBA in a medium sized Telcom with approx 40 DBA's. From what I can tell I'm earning in the top 90% for this field by location and do not expect that I could make much more under my current title elsewhere. I would not ordinarily ask a career question in a forum but also would rather not deal with a recruiter because I'm not planning on making any changes. I managed to work my way into the field From MS Access through SQL Server, onto the Linux side with MySQL, Oracle and Oracle-RAC and other Clustered Analytics DB technologies. I've been with my current company for 6.5 years and my role has evolved into walking Priority Rapid Development "Big Data" products through development, UAT and into production. I've been working exclusively with clustered DB technologies for the last 4 years. I had neatly avoided Oracle until I was assigned lead over a Rapid Develpment project that was the first to use RAC 11Gr2. I'm certainly not an oracle expert and I received alot of help with that one but now work comfortably it. It also obviously wasn't too long ago. I don't mean this to be a resume, but my point is that my current employer seems to consider me capable for my job function and learning pretty much anything on my own. Many of my coworkers have masters degrees. I have no college degree or major certifications. I have accumulated a number of minor certs from week long vendor classes. Some of them issued from Oracle U. Until this point, I was quietly proud for having avoided jumping through those hoops. I know there is some % of potential employers that would dismiss me from the candidate list for not having major certs or a degree. I'm trying to determine whether it is worth adding school to a DBA's schedule with no likely benefit to my salary. Basically can I find a job elsewhere in today's market based on experience and minor certifications.