Today is a very exciting day for us here at SQLskills.com as we take the first step at growing as a company instead of solely partnering with other consultants with their own companies. While we value our partnerships and plan to continue many, we also value the benefits brought by having a small and dedicated team of highly technical and skilled employees.
Specifically, we’ve asked Jonathan Kehayias to become employee #3 (with Kimberly being #1 and me being #2) and we’re extremely pleased that he accepted our offer.
We first met Jonathan four years ago when we crossed paths on the MSDN forums where he is a prolific provider of answers (actually the top answerer on the Database Engine forum) and we’ve been casually discussing eventually hooking up at some point for well over a year. This year the stars aligned and Jonathan is making the move, starting with us mid-March.
Jonathan is the world authority on Extended Events in SQL Server 2008—he wrote the definitive whitepaper on Extended Events for Microsoft and he authored the Extended Events Manager SSMS add-in, which won the PASS 2008 SQL Hero contest. He has a thirst for knowledge and digging into the guts of SQL Server that’s truly inspiring, and he constantly impresses us with how much he knows.
[Edit 02/24/11: Jonathan just passed the MCM certification – congratulations!!!]
Jonathan is a performance tuning expert, both SQL Server and hardware, and has architected complex systems as a developer, business analyst, and DBA. This breadth of role experience, along with extensive development (T-SQL, C#, and ASP.Net), hardware and virtualization design expertise, and Windows, Active Directory, IIS, and other component knowledge makes Jonathan an incredible addition to our team. He has also presented at multiple conferences including PASS, SQLBits, and VMware Open Forum, and will be presenting at PASS SQL Rally and SQL Connections this Spring.
Jonathan is also a Drill Sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserves, and did a tour of duty in Iraq in 2004. He’s married with two small children and describes himself as a ‘general goofball’—he’s going to fit right in :-) In all seriousness though, his dedication to his family, his country and his work is without doubt extraordinary.
You can follow Jonathan on twitter and he'll be moving his blog over to SQLskills.com very soon.
One of the most interesting aspects about Jonathan being a real employee rather than a partner consultant is that we’re not limited to only working on client projects. We’re going to be working on research, benchmarks, tools, and other really useful things for the SQL community, our classes, and our clients. We’re already planning resources that will be available exclusively to our SQLskills.com community. Join now!
As you can tell, we’re really looking forward to Jonathan starting to work at SQLskills.com and we’re planning great things to come plus more additions to the team. Watch this space…
Thanks as always,
Paul and Kimberly
20 thoughts on “SQLskills hires deep technical expert Jonathan Kehayias”
Exciting times. Congratulations to you all.
Very cool!
Paul – I love you and Kim, but "guaranteed stability" is about the last word I’d use around any of us, myself and Jonathan included. ;-)
And with their first-round pick in the SQL draft, SQLSkills selects: Jonathan Kehayias!
Nice pickup Paul/Kim. Now question is will he end up wearing a sheep costume or will he make you guys run at 0500 hours? Seriously though, CONGRATS to all!
Congrats to both, well deserved.
Outstanding news! Jonathan is a class act and one of the guys who inspires me to keep growing. Glad to see him sign on with such a great opportunity.
Congratulations to Jonathan Kehayias!
Just one question in regards to the whole "being a real employee rather than a partner consultant is that we’re not limited to only working on client projects"? If you wanted to have a consultant to non consulting work, couldn’t you just assign him or her to a non-billable project and pay him out of pocket, instead of billing someone there rate times your multiplier? As an employee don’t you still have to justify his existence with x amount of billable hours per week/month/quarter, or declare him part of some cost sink?
I don’t know much about running a business, so I’m curious about the though process there.
Hey Justin – yes, but this way is far easier, plus as an employee we can offer all kinds of employee benefits that don’t apply to consulting partners, plus guaranteed stability. It works out really well on so many levels.
Hahaha – we’re all as stable as each other :-)
Very nice move, Jonathan will be a great addition.
That’s great news. Glad to hear you guys are trying new things, and glad that Jonathan gets to be a part of it. Best of luck to all involved.
Sounds like a real win-win for everybody!! Congrats to both sides!!
Congratulations to you all.
Hey I was thinking about hiring Jonathan :) I am glad to see the team growing and maintaining the highest quality people. I look forward to working more with the entire team in CY11.
Congrats and wish you more success!
Isn’t Brent employee #3?
Nope – we’ve never had employees before – only people with their own companies that we partner with under the SQLskills.com umbrella.
Congratulations to Jonathan and you too.
To see this all move…. Looks like Sqlskill is going to be a wellknown company. and the way it is growing (specially starts with this year).
Congrats for the BIG move.
Vin
Good to see talented SQL guys are joining with SQLSkills ( Brent,Jonathan……)
Best wishes
Ponnu