It's a catch-22 situation: It takes experience to get experience. You have to be proactive in your approach to getting a DBA - junior or otherwise - position. A lot of industries/companies are like that. How do you get SAP experience, for example? You can get lucky by being in a company that implements it. Same with Siebel. You take that experience and build on it. Oracle is not much different. Find a hole or opening that is Oracle-related (software quality assurance is an excellent springboard) and build on that experience. As a developer, you can do the same thing - become the "database expert" within your development group, take on all the database development tasks, offer to do (or learn how to) Oracle installs for your group, and so on. That gives you experience and sets you up to be a junior DBA (not that there are that many jr DBA jobs being advertised these days, and that leads to the same situation as any other job hunter - target a few companies, focus your resume, get informational interviews, etc.).