You are correct; however, the DBA has to work with the SysAdmins in order to be effective as they do not have the root password to do many things and so they need the Sys Admins. Now days, companies are looking for SysAdmins to even do the DBA work and the way they do it is to come up with the title of ???Engineer??? regardless if the individual has an engineering degree or not. It has been my experience that most IT people do not have an engineering diploma from a university and what they have done is to get a DBA certification and that is it; however, when it comes to troubleshooting a problem they go to the SysAdmin???I have been there. The sad thing is that even SysAdmins are not engineers but merely have a certification or have learned the OS by experience. Also, most companies in the USA use non-engineers for support but they get the ???Engineer??? status.