Tips

When people have confided in me that they want to make a change in their careers to transition into tech or engineering but they aren’t sure if it will be something they like doing, I give them these tips as a starting point.

There’s a lot of information out there you can search for, but if it’s helpful, these “tools and tips for getting into data x engineering” have helped folks in the past. I am resharing them here, and I’ll spend the time periodically going through them for any updates!

Hope this helps!

Jacky SoData With Style, Founder

Pick 1 language and double down. Google for projects with that language. Pick 1 to learn. Google for which platforms are good for projects in that language. Most platforms are either free or have a free version to use for learning.

If you have a mentor at work who has time to mentor you, that’s awesome! But chances are, no one has time to truly onboard you in a way that’s needed. Everyone needs somebody who can join, volunteer to take on a project, and figure it out.

The sooner you start diving in, the easier it will be to ask others questions on what you realize you need help with. This creates tangible, “doable” questions, so it makes it easier on others who have the kind of legacy knowledge you need to share what they know.

Think about what you can do and what you want to do. Understand that it’s okay if there’s a difference. For example, now I’m offering skills I’ve learned as a Data Engineer to provide insight as a consultant on projects, and that’s my way of making use of what I’ve learned. But my real skills that I wanted to translate into future jobs are more project management/program management-oriented. There are lots of jobs–don’t be afraid to ask yourself if the tasks of the work themselves are how you want to live your life.

Set aside ego, but be proud of what life path you bring, because you have inherent value in simply being yourself. People need reminders that there are other opinions and views out there. Have you ever come across a commercial and thought, “Who gave that the green light?!” If they had more diversity in that room pitching the idea, or if different perspectives were shared, for sure they would have caught the problematic components before spending tons of money on something meant for a wider audience.

For the love of everything, I cannot emphasize the under-appreciated-missed-opportunity importance of documentation! Even if just for yourself, take good notes on everything, because you never know how much it can help you later when you need to figure out how to do something. If you begin to work in documentation as a regular part of your workflow (ie, you cushion time for it), you are doing yourself a huge favor. I call this, “helping me help my future self.” 

There were so many times someone asked if I knew x, y, z about something that happened months ago. I’m like, “Hmm…I vaguely remember, but so much has happened since then that I want to see if I wrote anything down about it.” Then, I’ll search my notes and come across a step-by-step or process shift that explains what the client is seeing/why the data changed/if it introduced a bug/if we can replicate a project that someone else used to manage before they left, etc.

Sooo many times, I found myself celebrating, “Yess!! Thank you past me! You helped future me!”

It can be surprising how quickly we forget things we knew, and not being afraid to “learn it all” (even if you are re-learning it), combined with your epic notes, will help you continue growing, building, and improving on your work!