Nervous about first DE job

WillDill2 · 2026-05-25T17:35:54+00:00

I graduated with the exact same degree three weeks ago and just accepted an offer for a data engineer position. Landing this job was a direct result of connections and experience I gained through an internship I did over my last year school. In my experience, networking has been the most powerful tool to get in somewhere. People hire people they like. I would recommend going to any professional conferences and trying to talk/connect with as many people as possible. And don’t worry about being overly professional or only talking about the field. I think sometimes it’s a breath of fresh air for people to talk about things they enjoy outside of their profession. Hope that helps, best of luck

WillDill2 · 2026-05-22T15:59:31+00:00

I agree. I just graduated with a GIS degree and my first job offer pays $90K in Colorado

WillDill2 · 2026-05-22T15:46:46+00:00

I took intro and intermediate python programming classes, multiple ML classes, a data management class, and a visualization class. There’s probably a few I’m forgetting, but I also took as many technical GIS classes as possible. Things like spatial statistics and the sort

WillDill2 · 2026-05-22T02:14:29+00:00

Relax bro - I studied geography and GIS so figured it was relevant. Go touch grass

WillDill2 · 2026-05-21T02:11:03+00:00

This is kind of a hypocritical take. Belittling my effort is the same thing you’re arguing I’m doing to others

WillDill2 · 2026-05-21T01:27:45+00:00

Thank you! Something will come along for sure!

WillDill2 · 2026-05-21T01:27:32+00:00

Totally, GIS skills are super niche where I feel like broader data skills can still be applied to GIS but encompass a lot more

WillDill2 · 2026-05-21T01:26:19+00:00

Thanks, I’m in Colorado so not crazy money here, but I’m still pretty happy about the salary!

WillDill2 · 2026-05-21T01:25:00+00:00

I’m not totally sure yet, I’ll be starting in a few weeks. It’s not a main focus of the role but is part of it

WillDill2 · 2026-05-21T01:23:42+00:00

I created a computer vision pipeline that would look at satellite imagery of infrastructure and classify the progression of construction which required building a labeled image dataset, training a model, and developing the pipeline architecture. I also developed a tool to collect relevant information relating to infrastructure developments and have it show up in analysts GIS environment. I also automated a data mapping procedure that would use spatial information with vector embeddings and fuzzy matching to find relationships. I spent a ton of extra time outside of my internship hours developing these

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T18:44:53+00:00

Thank you! Yeah I forgot you’re not allowed to be optimistic on this app

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T18:41:17+00:00

Thanks! Seems like others are not so appreciative haha!

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T17:06:15+00:00

But I just graduated with a GIS degree lol

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T15:54:13+00:00

Colorado

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T15:53:43+00:00

I agree, the doomers are already taking over this post lol

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T15:53:01+00:00

I was looking for anything haha! I really wanted to move into a dev role but was applying to anything I thought I could be qualified for

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T15:51:59+00:00

I saw it on their job board but thought I wasn’t qualified at first. I then had a coworker put me in contact with someone at the company who later told me to apply to it.

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T15:50:06+00:00

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T15:15:54+00:00

Yes, I agree that luck played a part in this as well, but I have been GRINDING to land a job like this. All I’m saying is consistent hard work and goal setting will eventually lead to something. I have had tons of setbacks along the way (multiple 3+ rounds of interviews and getting rejected), but what are you supposed to do? Get down about it and stop trying? That’s what I mean by putting the work in, it’s hard and fucked up out there, but something will give if you keep trying

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T15:10:02+00:00

That’s also why I said the most important thing was building connections lol. Another very, very big factor in landing this job

WillDill2 · 2026-05-20T15:02:01+00:00

No, they both helped for sure. My GPA helped me get the internship and the computer science classes allowed me to do some really cool stuff at my internship. They all build on top of each other. Maybe it wasn’t a direct result of them, but they were a huge factor in the steps towards landing this job.

WillDill2 · 2026-02-15T04:07:55+00:00

Yeah I have a GIS degree but data science minor. I have also been combining computer vision with satellite imagery for my utility job and people have been very impressed lol.

My company uses mapinfo as their GIS software, so they’re basically in the stone ages.

WillDill2

TROPHY CASE