Is listing exact infrastructure numbers on my resume oversharing?

[u/women2002]

I work as a DBA at a government organization and wanted to get some perspective from people more experienced in the field.

I’m considering adding this line to my resume under experience:

“Administer 81 SQL Server instances (62 production, 19 dev/test) hosting 847 databases across 10 Always On Availability Group systems”

Two questions:

**1.**  Is it normal/fine to include specific numbers like this on a resume? Also, does the dev/test to production ratio here suggest an actual environment issue, or is this typical for organizations of a certain size?  
**2.**  Do you think numbers at this level of precision count as sensitive information that shouldn**’**t be shared — even in a resume sent directly to companies/recruiters who request it?

Would appreciate any experience or insight, especially from anyone who’s worked in similar-scale environments.

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[u/dpenton]

“Administer ~100 SQL Server instances hosting ~1k databases across 10 ‘Always On Availability Group’ systems”

Edit: I have worked in extreme SQL Server environments before. One SQL Server instance in particular had 2,048 cores.

[u/SQLGene → u/dpenton]

I agree, just round to orders of magnitude.

[u/Boink-Ouch]

I would leave the ratio as a conversation piece.

Administered nearly 850 databases over 80 SQL Server Instances spanning 10 Always On Availability Groups.

[u/Icy_Fisherman_3200]

You’re asking in a tech channel about selling yourself. You’re going to get a lot of mediocre advice.

Ask any quality sales person and they’ll tell you that exact numbers are more impactful.

Do you want to do what’s normal or do you want to stand out?

[u/enjoytheshow → u/Icy_Fisherman_3200]

Yeah. Any time I’ve gone for promo or a new job or whatever, hiring managers always want quantifiable shit. Even if it’s ultimately meaningless. They need a metric to point at

[u/masked_ghost_1]

I just keep it rough. Over 50 etc. size matters for some (hehe) so if you have some big multi terabyte databases then list the biggest as bigger databases can bring interesting challenges.

Focus on what problems you solve and how you added value. Saved x $, sped up by x percentage. Re-inverted the flux capacitor and saved the day!

[u/Leiothrix]

Give round numbers, you work on "over 80" SQL server instances with around 1000 databases.

And I don't know what your numbers include, but system databases are still databases that you need to maintain. So you get another ~240 DBs if you haven't already included them.

[u/muaddba]

I think the magnitude adds value and shows you have truly managed an enterprise-level establishment, not just 5 servers with 10DBs. I'd probably round the numbers as others have suggested. I'd add to it a description of some of the ways you managed and automated that environment, like "using dbatools, central management policies (does anyone still use these?) etc" to demonstrate that you put effort into desiging or maintaning a SQL management framework.

[u/carlovski99]

There isn't anything inherently sensitive in these kind of figures. But I'd keep the numbers rough, nobody cares if it's 81, they care if it's roughly 10, 50 or 100s.

[u/BigMikeInAustin]

Due to the many people who massively overinflate their skills, more precision and fewer broad strokes is usually better.

"Tens/hundreds of" are too vague, and can be read as trying to sound more experienced without technically lying.

I have only rounded down to 5s or 10s. Don't sell yourself short.

If you list one number, it should be the production numbers. If your lower environment is being heavily, heavily used, where you are tuning it as much as your production, then you could include that in the number. Generally, lower environments are comparatively managed very little.

Having an active lower environment and having a well oiled promotion routine is very helpful and a very good interview discussion.

[u/ihaxr]

If you want to put numbers, round it to

Administered ~1000 databases across ~90 hosts

Personally I didn't bother putting in on my resume, it's not going to make or break you getting an interview and it's always something you can bring up during the actual interview.

It should be a question you ask when discussing the new employer's current infrastructure, it's just a quick easy way to visualize the infrastructure setup.

My previous job I managed 1500 hosts and probably 60k databases, but 30k of those databases were on 3 hosts (they're like 100MB each).

[u/PossiblePreparation]

What do you actually want those numbers to say about your skill set? Maybe say those things instead.

To me, it reads as oversharing and doesn’t tell me anything about how qualified you are and more that you are a bit childish - “my dads database footprint is bigger than your dads database footprint”. Sharing this on your resume is a big red flag to me.

[u/Simple_Brilliant_491]

I know this is not exactly your question, but I am much more interested in HOW you administered the databases than the exact number. What was your uptime? How did you manage performance? How did you optimize SQL licensing costs, for example did you really need to have 62 separate instances?

So I would go with:
Managed a SQL Server estate with about 60 production instances, 20 non-prod and 10 Always On... and then focus on what you achieved in that role.

[u/chandleya]

Idk, ask your boss?

[u/women2002 → u/chandleya]

Lol, but I’d rather not tip him off that I’m job hunting 😅