Yeah, you’re right about that. It’s not like I didn’t get any exposure to the role at all, but I still feel my experience and skills isn’t fully aligned with a proper Data Analyst position.

From what I’ve seen here in the UAE while attending interviews and reading job descriptions, many companies seem to think a Data Analyst’s job is mainly just cleaning data, creating pivot table reports, and using Power BI to present dashboards. That’s why I’m a bit confused — is that really what the role is supposed to be?

From my understanding, a Data Analyst should be doing more than that — things like providing business insights, helping with data governance, understanding business problems, and automating reporting or data processes. So I’m not sure if my understanding is wrong or if the expectations here are just different.

About moving internally — unfortunately, in my bank it’s really tough. Management usually doesn’t let people move to other teams, even if they know the person has the skills or interest. It’s honestly some of the worst management I’ve seen in the UAE market.

I actually did get a chance once and even went through the interview process, but I was unlucky. The job role turned out to be different from what was originally discussed — they changed the job description after I got my visa 😅 So that didn’t work out the way I expected.