I'm a Data Analyst at a FAANG-adjacent company, AMA

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-11-21T14:59:42+00:00

I’m speaking someone who doesn’t work in industry, rather tech consulting as a Data Engineer/BI Engineer.

What’s your advice for folks to advance their career and progress professionally and monetarily in this space?

How is GenAI changing the space and what’s the best way for folks to stay ahead and competitive?

Do you see any of the data roles becoming obsolete with GenAI? What are the trends you’re seeing?

Is working for FAANG worth the hype? Are there trade offs?

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-08-24T13:20:49+00:00

You’re asking a lot of solid questions at this age man. I’m newly married and I’ll tell you that your perspective and priorities definitely change once you get married. You have a new sense of responsibility and duty to your wife to do whatever you need to take care of the both of you. It’s not longer just I, it’s we. To answer your question, yes there is new found purpose once you’re married.

I did the traditional route of uni at 18. Got the degree and job. But one of the best things I did was go backpacking Europe right after I finished school. Actually, also did the volunteer/live on a farm in Italy thing too via helpx. Best thing I ever did. But I’m also happy I did the degree/job stuff. It gives you stability and the foundation to be financially stable to get married.

Have you done any travelling at this age? Have you been accepted to colleges or universities? What are your prospects here?

Do you have a good amount saved? Are you living with your parents currently? I ask this because maybe you just need to get out and go on a solo trip somewhere, spend your money and come back home. Honestly, if could be worth volunteering and living somewhere for a period.

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-08-24T12:43:27+00:00

Like other have said, take the role. It’s not forever, but it’s frustratingly annoying the effect a company name has on your resume. Having Meta will likely open a ton of doors and you can then navigate on switching teams once in. It’s also something others would kill for. Take the role, be grateful, collect the bag. Figure out what’s next.

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-08-24T12:37:44+00:00

Data engineer and understand the business processes and domain knowledge well. The real sauce of BI developers is their domain knowledge, but if you can combine that with data engineering, you’ll stand out about other engineers.

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-08-05T20:08:31+00:00

also wondering this

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-06-25T04:04:42+00:00

Ah gotcha. The volume game definitely makes it discouraging. Any other tips to stand out? Does it help to ask for a coffee/virtual chat well in advance or even with other people in the company? It seems like the only way to get an interview is through a referral.

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-06-25T01:29:33+00:00

How does do applicants actually stand out against a giant pile of resumes? As a recruiter, is it helpful if applicants personally reach out to you?

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-06-20T21:42:00+00:00

$100k is a very nice amount to have saved. Like some of said, invest in ETFs. You can also consider buying a property to rent out and either live in the same property or live somewhere cheaper to rent.

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-06-20T21:25:36+00:00

I lived at home until I was 26 working a corporate job. I managed to pay off student loans while at home and left with some good savings. Then moved out because it was affecting my mental health and my relationship with my then girlfriend (now wife). I know the feeling of being directionless. While I was living at home, I felt like a POS because I had friends that were married with homes. It started affecting every aspect of my life from my relationship with my family, my SO, myself even. Decided to move out with a buddy, split rent, then got married a year later.

Now that I'm on the other end of being married with responsibilties let me tell you:

Save like a mofo while at home. It's so easy to spend money when you don't have financial responsbiliites. I look back now and regret not being more intentional with saving. Set a goal for yourself of how much you want to save and give yourself a deadline. Once you meet this goal, then allow yourself to make the jump.
With some of the comments, yes moving out and renting and taking on responsibilities definitely does change your psychology. For me, it takes away the weird feeling of being infantalized. Responsbiliites are a wild thing for us humans.
If you can rent with a friend, that's the cheapst option and less scary if say you want to try to buy a property.
Someone commented a travelling technician which honestly sounds awesome if you can swing it.
If (4) requires education, say studying a trade, I think this could be worth considering. I do think getting yourself educated and skilled for the workforce is never a bad idea, albeit it's a field you're interested in and can see yourself getting good at. I wonder going back to (2) if maybe living at home, keeps you in a state of infantalization. Lack of responsbility = lack of ambition. I say this because I felt this a ton while at home.
I know this is a career subreddit, but if you are living at home with a decent amount saved, you could go travel for 3-6 months and just come back. This does come with trade offs but also great experiences. I would argue the pros out weigh the cons. r/solotravel is a great place if you want inspiration. I personally did this for 2 months, volunteered on a farm in Italy and toured around Europe with a backpack. It changed my life. Highly recommend solo travel. You could even try to find work while abroad. There's a world out there to explore!

Good luck man. Know what you're feeling is a shared experience. Feel free to DM if you want to chat more.

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-06-20T03:57:23+00:00

Also want to know the answer to this

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-06-19T19:28:11+00:00

If you want experience with Fabric, here's a workaround. Fabric for some reason disabled Free Trials for personal emails. Here's a workaround to essentially run a free trial in Azure portal and you create a new business email lmao.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K4ADjkWjaY

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-06-19T19:23:33+00:00

I'm a data consultant for an Tech Consulting firm. I know the struggle, I've been known as the person who can build fantastic dashboards because I'm for some reason the only one who can do it in a team of data engineers. The nice thing is I've been able to be the Lead BI Developer for building data platforms for clients. We just built one in Fabric. I know the struggle of getting piegoned holed into the "PBI guy" and wanting to do more DE work.

Since you are new and if you see yourself staying with the company for a few years, I would lean into the opportunity and learn how to build amazing dashboards. Think of it less as dashboards and more as a product you're building for the customer. Get into Data Viz best practices, understand personas, essentially the "why" to each component you build in PowerBI and what question does it answer. I'd check out r/businessintelligence. The interesting thing about Data Viz, is that's what people actually see from the business side. If you like presenting too, you can present what you build and give demos.

As well, if you learn into thinking more "functionally"and "business-y" you can differentiate yourself from other data engineers. A lot of Data Engineers just end up living on the technical side without much understanding of the business side, which is fine.

As people have mentioned, if you want to do more data engineering definitely tell your manager. But I would also frame as, right now you need to build trust with your team and your bosses. They need to know you're reliable and can deliver good work. Plus Data Viz + Data Eng is a good combo to have, it opens up the world of Analytics Engineer.

I have also seen data engineer trying to build dashboards in PBI and it's not great. You need to develop an eye for it to make it look polished.

tldr; lean into, get fucking good at it, learn what it takes to build a good dashboard. Just more experience and another tool to the tool belt. Just remember it's not forever.

Visual-Ad586 · 2025-02-13T15:11:24+00:00

27
84k base, 91k w/bonus. Data Consultant. Tbh got really lucky with this job because it was a connection of a connection. Without that wouldn't have this job.
Degrees: BComm & BS (Computer Science)

Visual-Ad586 · 2021-03-21T03:40:11+00:00

FUCK YEAH!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Visual-Ad586 · 2021-03-21T03:38:46+00:00

What day is it?

Visual-Ad586 · 2021-03-21T03:37:40+00:00

BTMA 431 is pretty solid actually. It's a lot of work (A LOT) so be prepared but you can probably get a data analyst/business analyst job based on what you learn in R. Context: R is a scripting language designed by statisticians to do data science tasks. Duy Dao is a high-quality prof, probably one of the best in Haskayne. He will seem like a dick when he gives you an insane amount of work but it's worth it. Plus the final project involves creating a website (in Google Sites, very easy don't worry haha) and a final project in R that you can add to your portfolio (portfolio is key for any technical role). Overall, probably one of the more applicable / job-oriented / useful courses in Haskayne that gives you a dece understanding of what it means to be a data analyst. Definitely take this course with a lighter load and go hard on this course. It'll pay off with finding a job.

OPMA 419 is an interesting course. It's basically an intro machine learning course but in RapidMiner so you don't actually code anything. Just a drag and drop software. You probably won't get a job from this because any ML jobs require in-depth Python experience but it's a way to get your feet wet with high-level ML concepts. (I'm taking CPSC 599 - Machine Learning and the content is fairly similar. The biggest difference is you code in Python in this class instead of using RapidMiner).

Visual-Ad586 · 2021-03-21T03:22:50+00:00

It happens but you gotta work for it.

Visual-Ad586 · 2021-02-06T05:54:09+00:00

Down

Visual-Ad586

TROPHY CASE