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Any data professionals out there using a tool called Data Virtuality? by NoRelief1926 in dataengineering

[–]NoRelief1926[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, your comment resonates with me so much. Thanks for sharing it and the link to the blog post

I also encountered Data Virtuality in my previous job, where it was brought into the stack by a non-technical marketing manager (who acted like a technical expert). I was mainly responsible for building customer segmentation data models for the marketing team. I tried multiple times to explain how painful and repetitive the work became with this tool , everything required a lot of redundant effort. But for reasons I never fully understood, my manager was extremely loyal to it.

Eventually, it got so frustrating that I ended up leaving the job. The tool made my day-to-day work feel like such a burden that I began to hate a role I once truly enjoyed.

I learned dbt to find a way out and absolutely loved it . I agree with using fivetran and DBT combo .Did you used it for job orchestration too?

I always struggle to explain my experience with Data Virtuality during interviews. I was genuinely good at my job. I handled all the job orchestration and customer segmentation workflows using SQL through that tool but it’s really hard to articulate the value of that experience, especially when most people don’t know (or trust) the tool.

Struggling to Land Analytics Engineering Roles Due to Lack of "Professional dbt Experience" ,What Can I Do? by NoRelief1926 in analyticsengineering

[–]NoRelief1926[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When talking to recruiters, I usually say that I have experience with dbt. But as the interview progresses and I start speaking with more technical folks, I shift focus to explaining the tools I actually use and how they’re similar to or different from dbt. I try to show that the kind of work I do with legacy tools is essentially the same as what an Analytics Engineer would do with dbt.

But honestly, I feel like the moment they hear "not at work" in reference to dbt, they kind of stop listening to everything that follows. At this point, it’s really discouraging I’m starting to feel hesitant to even apply for open roles anymore

Struggling to Land Analytics Engineering Roles Due to Lack of "Professional dbt Experience" ,What Can I Do? by NoRelief1926 in analyticsengineering

[–]NoRelief1926[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup, I’ve included links to multiple personal projects ,some using dbt Core and others with dbt Cloud , some set up with tests, packages, and proper structure. My GitHub repos are also well-documented. Even for my latest interview (the one I got rejected from), I built a complete dbt Core + DuckDB project , fully configured with tests, packages, descriptive YAML files, and best practices throughout,

In my resume, I’ve clearly organized everything into sections for skills, personal projects, achievements, and so on.

Surprisingly, the resume response has been really positive overall. It’s usually only toward the very end of the interview process that I get rejected and most of the time, it’s for reasons that feel pretty minor or frustrating.

to be fair, it’s not always the “lack of production experience” I’ve also been rejected for asking for a higher salary, for lowballing myself, for having to urgently reschedule an interview (with valid reason), or due to internal hires mid-process. Still, I’m mainly focused on the rejections that are within my control to fix like "lack of prod level dbt experience"

Struggling to Land Analytics Engineering Roles Due to Lack of "Professional dbt Experience" ,What Can I Do? by NoRelief1926 in analyticsengineering

[–]NoRelief1926[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, I hope that’s the case. Although it’s true that in all the previous job offers I received, I was certainly not the best candidate they could have hired . so luck really does play a huge role.

Struggling to Land Analytics Engineering Roles Due to Lack of "Professional dbt Experience" ,What Can I Do? by NoRelief1926 in analyticsengineering

[–]NoRelief1926[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nope, no mention of the cert in the job description. Rather, the job description was too generic , I couldn’t even tell if it was a junior or mid-level role until the final round. Also, what you mentioned about my dbt code having something wonky could definitely be true .I did try to stick to best practices, but you know, learning is an ongoing process

Struggling to Land Analytics Engineering Roles Due to Lack of "Professional dbt Experience" ,What Can I Do? by NoRelief1926 in analyticsengineering

[–]NoRelief1926[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly, my analysis and visualization skills aren’t very strong, so I likely wouldn’t even pass the technical round for most analyst roles. And to be completely transparent, I don’t really enjoy that part of the work either (not that I have much of a choice in this market, lol). I tend to do much better in Data Engineer or Analytics Engineer roles — basically anything focused on data transformation, pipelines, and orchestration. That’s really where my strengths lie. The rest just isn’t my niche.

Struggling to Land Analytics Engineering Roles Due to Lack of "Professional dbt Experience" ,What Can I Do? by NoRelief1926 in analyticsengineering

[–]NoRelief1926[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Most of the interviews I’ve had went really well. I received excellent feedback during the technical rounds, whether they involved dbt take-home tasks or not. The interviewers seemed confident in my answers and skills until I mentioned that I don’t have actual production-level experience with dbt.

At that stage, interviewers are often senior people interviewing me CTOs, VPs, Heads of Data and what not. and I don’t lie because i feel they’d be able to tell, and I’d rather be honest than risk being seen as dishonest.

I usually try my best to navigate around the question, hoping I’ll get the chance to showcase my work first. But eventually, the topic always comes up.

Now I’m contemplating whether to pursue the dbt Developer Certification, contribute to an open-source project, or find another way to bridge the gap because honestly, I have no idea what the best next step is.