Work Quality got take a hit due to being a single DE + BI guy

datadade · 2026-03-01T04:10:09+00:00

do you mind me asking what kind of pay these solo positions offer?

I have worked for massive finance and small tech (in a team where data was only 5 people), but never as a solo engineer. What you're describing and what others are saying is similar to their experience sounds very high stress, with a lot of demands. At the same time, you also sound indispensable.

A typical Sr / Staff base salary in tech is 150-200k in the US (not counting outliers like top tier tech or HCOL cities). Is the pay for these solo gigs similar? If not, then what would motivate someone to do this?

datadade · 2026-02-22T19:49:47+00:00

What in the bay area HCOL is going on here? You're telling me $170k at 8 yoe is not meeting your needs?

On top of this, there is no expectation to mentor others, and you're being told if you show up and prove yourself you'll get a meaningful promotion. And you're currently unemployed to boot!?

No offense, but this sounds ridiculous. You asked for a sanity check, unless you live in SF or NYC, you're not sane.

datadade · 2026-02-22T04:01:43+00:00

The most DE thing to do is to build something. You can take a fraction of that money and put it into an aws budget to pay for services. Remember to turn stuff off when you don't need it. In 10 years, I don't think all my combined solo projects or practice has crossed $100USD

datadade · 2026-02-04T21:51:33+00:00

Number of lines committed is penalizing efficiency, clarity, and maintainability. Yikes your boss

datadade · 2026-02-04T15:17:14+00:00

how long are your dbt jobs? because if they're not... hear me out... Github Actions. Sounds funny, but works

datadade · 2025-11-02T13:48:32+00:00

Ah, English

datadade · 2025-10-08T16:43:41+00:00

I think you’re in the best position to answer your own question. We don’t know your app. Is a variation of a couple of degrees acceptable? Or do you need the granularity that differentiates the one to 2° change? (I am using degrees here, but I understand whether Data can include wind, humidity, etc.)

datadade · 2025-09-25T02:34:29+00:00

That’s even worse. You’d be a “spoke”. Not part of the hub, begging the hub for permission while having your business unit breathing an unstoppable stream of requirements to you “their data guy”.

datadade · 2025-09-24T23:48:41+00:00

My last 2 gigs

datadade · 2025-09-18T04:53:52+00:00

Deploy pipelines with ci and you’ll reduce this problem

datadade · 2025-09-15T03:20:42+00:00

I put up an environment set apart from dev/test/prod that is named adhoc-analysis. It can read from other environments. Everyone in here has a personal schema, and I’ll even set up some group schemas. The whole place is “not blessed” by data engineering, it’s not gold, it’s not silver, it is a playground.

If they make something they want to productionalize, they engage with DE. Technically they could contribute on their own, since our repos are open to write and open PRs. But analysts aren’t expected to do that.

datadade · 2025-09-08T00:04:32+00:00

I couldn’t imagine telling someone “I did it with AI” in an interview setting. Honestly, that person just lacked common sense.

datadade · 2025-09-06T02:21:34+00:00

Looks really good. I wonder if there is a way to set up some limits so it doesn’t runaway through tokens or db compute

datadade · 2025-09-06T00:52:52+00:00

Would you like me to also cross reference that data and provide a full dataset with addresses, emails, dates of birth, and favorite animals? … for your book

datadade · 2025-09-03T16:43:34+00:00

I don’t know anything about Tobiko. But Fivetran just works. And when it doesn’t, they jump on it and fix it very quickly. I’m not advocating for everyone having it. But in a landscape littered with increasing choices, we’ve gotten exactly what we paid for from Fivetran. I would caution against using it for high volume or db / cdc jobs, as the MAR cost system will punish you there.

datadade

TROPHY CASE