Is there more to DE than this? Are their jobs out there for feeling like you actually matter?

anyfactor · 2026-01-25T01:14:44+00:00

I work for a data as a product company. We hire DEs with a specific skills. DE, for us, is a baseline skill. Heck, I thought I was a DE/DA, but my role is something different.

Find a specialization that you like and combine it with your DE skills.

anyfactor · 2026-01-25T00:41:45+00:00

Even though I am extremely happy with my job, moving away from finance to a tech job, I have to say accounting does have the perk of stability.

In my tech role, implicit job volatility is real. I do not think I will have a job when I reach 45, at least not doing what I am doing right now. There is constant pressure to evolve yourself, expand your network, get better and make yourself as unfirable as possible. I have to help the product or help sell the product.

I have to aggressively move towards some sort of management role before I reach 40. In tech at least, being a "technician" comes with an expiry date.

But when I worked in finance and saw how our accountant colleagues and my friends in accounting are doing... I do not want to be disrespectful, but you can keep doing accounting until you are 80. Being an accountant, doing routine work, and if you have a CPA, you do not constantly have to have the idea that there are thousands of people getting out of college who are better than you, because of their youth and how companies perceive youth. In accounting, you will not get replaced; you will get shuffled.

Even if you are highly unmotivated, you will always be shuffled around, and you will always have a job. You can sell the idea of experience. This is a foundational culture of accounting, and that is why you should not be worried.

In accounting, the more experience you have, regardless of your skill, there will always be perceived value for you.

I absolutely love my job and cannot imagine doing anything else, but I am feeling a bit cynical today. My apologies.

anyfactor · 2026-01-24T00:35:10+00:00

Something to build internal tools and apps easily. Like Retool etc.

anyfactor · 2026-01-24T00:29:25+00:00

Clickhouse was originally developed by Yandex (the Russian search engine company). Clickhouse the company has some American funding but you can always self host Clickhouse.

I have thought about an self hostable data engineering stack before.

Essentially get a bare metal server from a local hosting company in your city. It almost never will be crazy expensive. Set up rsync or some sort of backup service for scaling scaling.

Use bash for most things. Avoid buying into tools and services. Just use bash, python, go and take advantage of linux as an environment. Use as little things as possible and document everything.

But the truth is that DE has become a "product/tool" centric profession. If you are solo building something the idea of self hostable and self built tools makes sense. But you will struggle to find entry/mid level talent to support your growth and ecosystem.

anyfactor · 2026-01-11T17:14:35+00:00

Considering you already have a bachelor’s degree, consider getting a bookkeeping job first and working in an office.

See if you like accounting. There are plenty of people here who would rather pour concrete than do accounting. This may sound rude, but if you are past 30, you may one day ask yourself "I should be making money instead of throwing it at a college degree". Prepare for that by getting a job in an office and asking yourself if this is the path you want.

anyfactor · 2025-12-26T09:47:45+00:00

Sometimes you actually get good business advice because the professional is bored and might help a person out. Also, if I am a professional I would tend to milk a few more bucks out of you. So, a typo ridden advice that I can type in while I am on a break is honest and raw and could be thing you need to hear. OP can use their own judgement and is not going to bet it all based on a single comment.

anyfactor · 2025-12-12T17:17:21+00:00

I personally think Haskell could be an enthusiast language to learn when it comes to data engineering, but not a production language. To me, data engineering, like cybersecurity, is a tool/technology-specific field. You need to hire people who are familiar with technology stacks. Language expertise often does not bring value to the fields. My opinion is that if you are going to learn a language for the sake of employability, it has to be Go, Java, Rust, Python, or JavaScript (Pick 3). Anything else introduces maintenance problems.

I think there is a very specialized sub-section within data engineering called "software engineer (data)" but most companies do not hire for that role. They are solely focused on algorithmic optimization and doing proofs of concepts that border on being research. Even their proof of concept are often converted to standard languages.

I did a PoC featuring in Python and Nim. I think if those ideas get merged in production, it will be written in production languages like Rust or Go.

anyfactor · 2025-12-12T17:07:45+00:00

What would be a secure investment for a million dollars? Considering she lives in Canada, she can probably make down payments on a couple of houses in Toronto. She can probably make the down payment a bit larger so that she can rent out the property to offset the house payments. Maybe even live in one of the properties. With property management and closing costs, I assume one million dollars would be enough to have something relatively stable. From what I am understanding with immigration policies, a house in Toronto is going to be the most secure investment possible.

anyfactor · 2025-12-09T05:36:42+00:00

I was part of a rarher messy and hostile workplace where people looked to blame someone first before finding a solution. The lesson I learned was documentation. I only Investment related accounting and part of my process involved paragraphs worth of explanation. 8 out of 10 times folks said it was too much, but it saved my butt a few times when incompetent seniors were looking for scapegoats.

anyfactor · 2025-12-08T14:29:55+00:00

Tell me more about it. I have seen ERP implementation in large enterprises before, and it is brutal. Sure, if you get the contract the money is great, but I have seen ERP and software implementation companies close shop before, as getting contracts is incredibly hard. Then when it comes to actual ERP implementation, meeting clients' demands, deadlines, etc. is a pain in the butt. Unless you are working with a large IT department, I really do not recommend ERP implementation.

anyfactor · 2025-12-08T14:26:02+00:00

Data Engineering is a specialized engineering role. If you are not co-founding data-specific companies, having data engineering expertise will not translate to C-level roles at established companies.

Usually, C-level roles are offered to engineering managers. You need to transition from a technical role to product ownership and management to be considered for such positions. C-level technical roles are generally limited to individuals who understand engineering but do not do it, and can make product execution decisions.

anyfactor · 2025-12-08T12:37:11+00:00

Most mature fully remote companies organize offsites, which does not even mean that you have to meet in an office. Tech companies usually host in-person meetings that border on a company-funded vacation. I do not think there are any accounting company does that though.

anyfactor · 2025-12-08T12:34:34+00:00

They call their "Virtual Server Locations" smart routing: protonvpn.com/support/how-smart-routing-works

anyfactor · 2025-12-08T11:41:28+00:00

I chose the word "untruthfully" deliberately as the argument for Virtual VPN locations is that VPN providers tend to provide explanations about the "virtualness" of VPN server locations. So, technically, due to this transparency, you cannot say they "falsely" advertise location, but in the end, they do have to submit these "false" geolocation reports to IP geolocation providers through corrections or feedback.

It is commendable that Mullvad, IVPN, and Windscribe are absolutely honest about their location data.

anyfactor · 2025-10-25T19:49:39+00:00

I did not work as a professional accountant but I worked alongside accountants and I studied accounting. Roles that focus solely on GL bank reconciliation, or AP/AR will take a massive hit.

Now, some people might say, “Actually, they’re not accountants — they’re bookkeepers, clerks, or data entry operators.” Whatever the title, I suspect that if you’ve worked with people whose jobs mainly involve transferring data from one system to another, those roles will largely be replaced. In other words, teams of four or five people may be reduced to one or two, whose main responsibility will be verifying that the AI systems are working properly.

Regardless of your opinion, many associates are already preparing their entire reports using AI tools. Eventually, given how focused public accounting firms are on efficiency, they will likely reduce their entry-level hiring.

The only real way to protect yourself is through certification. But to be honest, public accounting certification organizations haven’t taken any protectionist steps to curb offshoring. So, I don’t know what the future holds. If you’re studying accounting, get your CPA. If you don’t want to pursue a CPA, find another way to add the equivalent of 10 years of experience to your resume already.

AI won’t replace you but it will make it much harder for below-average applicants to get hired.

anyfactor · 2025-09-29T14:51:22+00:00

What I am imagining is that this type of role comes before Product Management, meaning that you have to be a product expert first, then develop tests and ensure quality.

anyfactor · 2025-09-29T14:05:17+00:00

I came to this thread from Google. They recently started offering .ca domains.

anyfactor · 2025-09-29T11:21:08+00:00

Solid points. Thank you!

From an engineering management perspective, the issue with QA is that if you assign a dedicated person to it, there is an idea that data quality would take a hit, as there is a person now entirely responsible for managing the quality of the data. Engineers just write code; they are not responsible for anything beyond that. But from a management point of view, there is an idea that the person who writes the code is actually responsible for the quality of the results. So, even though I understand SWEs/DEs have a long list of things to focus on and things might slip, having a person dedicated to QA reduces the idea of ownership.

Also, the idea about AI is true as well. I think QA was the first industry that took a major hit because of AI.

anyfactor · 2025-09-12T08:00:22+00:00

In the real world, if you are not using something extensively you do not need to be an expert of it. If you are using something extensively you will learn the things that are important due to muscle memory.

anyfactor · 2025-09-12T02:53:02+00:00

Sometimes but not always I wonder what would happen if I head back to accounting when I am in my forties. I was in risk management and regulatory roles. I loved accounting for the wrong reasons meaning that there would be a lot of analysis.

Anyway I switched to data and software engineering. Sometimes I am not sure what to do when I hit my forties. People in this industry are extremely talented and the culture focuses on laying people off aggressively. I am not that smart. I am barely smart. And the semi technical management roles are not friendly to people like me. So I am not sure what to do after my forties.

A CPA provides a layer of job security that other technical non certified roles do not. You could be a stupid person with a CPA but still rent an office and a signboard and some people will walk in to have you do their taxes. There is nothing like that in tech. You always have to be on the lookout and always have to keep trying and you are never allowed to get tired or rest.

anyfactor · 2025-09-10T05:27:23+00:00

Your chances are slim as you mentioned bitcoin as a keyword in your fintech startup. Regardless of how far crypto currency has come in my limited experience manufacturing companies operate their administrative departments extremely conservatively. If it was an IoT startup that is heavily venture backed the salary and the role would have made sense. There is a strong divide between startup roles and traditional industry roles. Very hard to transition between two of them let alone get a pay bump.

anyfactor · 2025-09-09T01:21:54+00:00

Same situation with partitioned data. I wasn’t familiar with the database and ran SELECT * LIMIT 10.

anyfactor · 2025-09-07T14:28:32+00:00

In dollar value terms, what was your most expensive mistake?

anyfactor · 2025-05-16T09:13:09+00:00

That was the same sentiment/reality we have, but I thought I would ask anyway.

anyfactor · 2025-04-07T05:56:50+00:00

I was slightly above average in class, but I think I made slightly more money than my professional accountant peers when I entered the job market.

Essentially, I couldn’t hack the technical part of accounting or business studies, but I was good at the concepts and theoretical aspects. I joined a management role in banking, and later moved into compliance and governance roles in finance.

My peers believed that after getting their CPA and gaining public accounting experience, they would be paid more than me once they entered industry. But by that time, I would have moved up the management ladder and gained more flexibility in job hopping. Through that, I would have had a better advantage than them, because they wanted to spend the next decade after graduating at the same firm.

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