This isn’t a value judgment on database administration, just an anecdote:
I’ve worked at 5 small companies in the last 15 years, and freelanced for a few years. The dev team size was: (15, 5, 5, 4, 8). None of those companies had a DBA. One company we had a full time IT/sysadmin, but otherwise that role was filled by people with a title like “software engineer”.
In truth, I think we often would have benefited from the expertise of a DBA, but we never made the decision to hire someone for that role full time.
I’ve worked at 5 small companies in the last 15 years, and freelanced for a few years. The dev team size was: (15, 5, 5, 4, 8). None of those companies had a DBA. One company we had a full time IT/sysadmin, but otherwise that role was filled by people with a title like “software engineer”.
In truth, I think we often would have benefited from the expertise of a DBA, but we never made the decision to hire someone for that role full time.