Call it the great shift for database professionals. Many a “doomer-and-gloomer” has suggested that data professionals may be seeing their roles usurped by automation and skills appropriation to other technology professionals such as developers. However, this may be the early stages of a new era for those in the profession—the rise of the renaissance data manager.
Renaissance data managers are seeing demand for their skills and expertise for several reasons, including the following:
- Business leaders and boards are leaning heavier than ever on their data teams to ensure they can compete effectively with AI and analytics—which only can succeed with the highest-quality data.
- Data security is constantly being threatened on levels never seen before, requiring the expertise of professionals who can keep hackers and malicious code out while quickly restoring data that has been corrupted or compromised.
- A large and growing variety of databases designed for specific purposes require professionals with a foundational knowledge to assure consistency in information flowing into and out of enterprise systems.
- Monetizing data is seen as a viable source of new revenue for many organizations, and dedicated professionals are needed to serve as product managers.
Database administrators and those in associated data management roles are here to stay, no matter what kind of evolution shapes or disrupts databases themselves. That’s the consensus of a range of industry experts and leaders who have deep involvement with database technology and management.
The role of database administration or management itself “will never disappear completely and is still highly relevant in many places and contexts,” said Ryan McElroy, VP of technology at Hylaine, a tech consultancy. “If anything, people who retain this title in 2026 are generally managing systems that are, on average, more critical than those from last decade.”
Professionals in these roles “create or organize systems to store and secure a variety of data, such as financial information and customer shipping records,” according to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
They also “make sure that the data are available to authorized users,” as well as “identify user needs to create and administer databases, ensure that databases operate efficiently and without error,” among other things.
But in the age of AI and data-driven enterprises, things are changing. The DBA and similar data management roles have become more critical than ever—well beyond basic tasks such as keeping databases up and running.
“Ten years ago, a DBA could name every database they managed. Today, that’s like asking a pilot to name every cloud they’ve flown through,” said Bakul Banthia, cofounder of Tessell. “The role has fundamentally shifted from custodian of individual databases—focused on backups, patching, and firefighting in static, on-premise environments—to orchestrating distributed, multi-cloud estates spanning dozens or hundreds of databases across engines, clouds, licensing models, and compliance regimes.”
Being a renaissance database manager means “moving away from being a siloed gatekeeper toward becoming a full-pipeline data professional,” said Bennie Grant, COO of Percona. These tasks are handled by cloud providers and means such basic tasks are moving away from manual backups and patching and tuning one-off queries to high-level architectural decisions that impact the entire stack. “It’s no longer just about storage, it’s about owning the infrastructure, security, and optimization of data from the moment it’s generated until it hits the analytics layer,” he stated. “The role has changed to become more strategic, more interesting, and more impactful.”
Until recent years, data management “was typically a specialized role focused on provisioning databases, managing backups, tuning performance, applying patches, and enforcing security, often working separately from application developers,” agreed Stephen Chin, VP of developer relations at Neo4j. Today, however, a DBA “is less defined by a single job title and more by a set of responsibilities that are distributed across development and operations teams.”
Today’s renaissance data manager “is a data platform steward, not just a database operator,” said Suyash Joshi, senior software engineer and developer advocate at InfluxData. “The role now focuses on security, performance, reliability, governance, and cost optimization across cloud and hybrid environments. Tasks that once defined the job—backups, patching, tuning—are largely automated. What remains is higher-value work: architecture decisions, cross-system integration, and ensuring data is trustworthy and fast enough for AI-driven applications. The role has evolved with additional responsibilities that are more strategic and more critical to operations.”
There are basic functions that still remain the essence of data managers’ jobs. “At most companies I talk to, database administrators are primarily concerned with keeping the database online, ensuring database performance, and ensuring data is never lost,” said Stephen Atwell, principal product manager with Harness.io. “However, at most companies, they spend significant time on other tasks. For example, helping applications define the data structures and schema in the database and how it evolves over time.”
There is a notable shift “away from the DBA performing such operations directly,” Atwell continued. “The DBA role is now more about governance and empowerment.”
Data management expertise is “still critical for architecture decisions, performance at scale, data governance, and reliability,” Chin pointed out. “What has changed is where and how that expertise is applied. Instead of a standalone gatekeeper role, database knowledge is embedded into developer workflows and operational systems, enabling teams to move faster while maintaining reliability and security.”
“Instead of defining the database schema, they now define the rules the schema must follow,” Atwell explained. “DBAs are working closer with platform engineering teams to empower developers to self-service database changes while implementing guardrails that leverage the DBAs knowledge in order to keep them safe. This role isn’t going away, but it is changing.”