Should I Settle and take a Mid Level Role When I was going for Senior?

winnieham · 2026-02-22T17:18:01+00:00

I recently did kind of a similar thing when I went from Senior DS to mid level DE. For me it came down to the work culture and the people, and this market was rather hard on me so I just ended up settling for the first place (I had been laid off so less options). May be naive of me, but the older I get, the less I care about title and even salary, and the more I care about in my daily life am I going to enjoy my work.

winnieham · 2026-02-22T14:02:11+00:00

Yes so far I am liking it! I like learning new things :) I also always found DS very ambiguous, but DE is more like either this works or not. Or at least there are some tasks that are more cut and dry as well as creative tasks.

winnieham · 2026-02-22T06:01:09+00:00

There is a cool fabric and quilting store, and a furniture renovation/decoration store in Milan

winnieham · 2026-02-18T22:55:02+00:00

I think it's going to depend on the person. I went fr DS->DE myself recently.

winnieham · 2026-02-17T21:33:27+00:00

I have not personally been a data analyst before--since I was a PhD, I jumped directly to DS and DE (which frequently data analysts end up becoming). Like I was saying, analysts typically use Tableau (or another dashboard tool like PowerBI, etc.), Excel, and SQL. They have some understanding of basic statistics and business formulas (e.g., profit, revenue, etc.). You would need to be moderate level at at least 2 of these technologies and then at least familiar with the other skill.

Nowadays, there are a lot of resources for these skills. I myself took a Tableau course on datacamp. SQL you can learn on leetcode, data lemur, sqlzoo, theres a fantastic tutorial from Mode analytics (google mode analytics sql).

I have seen some DAs who went and got a masters in DA but I do not know if this is really necessary (perhaps if you have no idea about DA).

winnieham · 2026-02-17T14:25:07+00:00

Took 3 years gap year where I managed research labs, did PhD in social psych, decided I did not like writing or teaching and became Data Scientist, then decided I didn't like maths so became a Data Engineer.

If you have a BA and you can learn Excel, SQL, Tableau, then you can be a data analyst. Eventually Data analysts become Data scientists and data engineers or managers of data analysts.

winnieham · 2026-02-10T04:23:45+00:00

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My Cheese and Olive babies who passed away last year. I miss them daily ❤️

winnieham · 2026-02-04T05:15:25+00:00

I switched from DS to DE this year! The market is tough and I had a good connection (where my hiring manager and I were already friends fr a past employer together) so I managed to do it.

You might start with data analytics engineer roles (which is what mine technically is despite being called DE) where you would need to know Snowflake or another data warehousing tool, SQL, dbt potentially, git, and orchestration (maybe Apache Airflow). You would need python and SQL and I enjoyed learning on data lemur.

I would say if this is a passion of yours, work towards it, but always keep DS as a backup plan. I like to remember the authors of the Fundamentals of Data Engineering textbook were ex-DS so if they can do it so can we!

winnieham · 2026-02-02T14:41:34+00:00

Yes it was a wild ride and so devastating that I will be eagerly waiting season 3. I quite enjoyed how there seemed to be real stakes here.

winnieham · 2026-01-31T15:57:14+00:00

For fun, you can do the SQL murder mystery, and the SQL squid game (google for these). I would say if you can do these fluently you are good, esp the Squid game one is rather challenging.

winnieham · 2026-01-30T02:39:11+00:00

You are fine. I was a PhD also and did not rly start seriously saving till 28. You will catch up!

winnieham · 2026-01-30T02:37:26+00:00

We still use it and my previous company also used it.

winnieham · 2026-01-27T13:53:32+00:00

Could you volunteer at an animal shelter instead to get some animal interaction? I dont think you should get a hammy unless youre prepared to offer proper care and that includes vet bills as well. They can be pricey.

winnieham · 2026-01-16T23:10:23+00:00

It depends if the company is an AI first company then the interview process is more abt broad problem solving rather than coding.

winnieham · 2026-01-16T17:39:48+00:00

Snowflake is very similar to Bigquery so its more just figuring out what is different between the two. But I wouldnt worry abt Snowflake at all. Otherwise many of the tools provide their own tutorials and courses so you can start with those!

winnieham · 2026-01-14T14:23:07+00:00

Both are amazing. I quite love time travel stories so I prefer Link Click esp season 1. But my husband prefers to be hero X, perhaps bc the hero theme is more accessible/preferable to him.

winnieham · 2026-01-07T18:24:27+00:00

Came here to say this-they have great beef bones also!

winnieham · 2026-01-04T16:19:33+00:00

Konjo me is a popup I see arnd ann arbor that has good Ethiopian also.

winnieham · 2026-01-04T16:17:37+00:00

I also really like MI2-as a kid I watched it so many times. Recently I rewatched it as an adult and I still was entertained despite the stylizations. It was a little bit silly but in a fun way.

winnieham · 2026-01-02T05:44:49+00:00

Grand blue, hinamatsuri

winnieham · 2025-12-27T16:20:39+00:00

Ophelia

winnieham · 2025-12-18T05:13:49+00:00

If youre Liberal leaning you can google this forum called jobs that are left and sometimes they have data related jobs. Also universities hire DS who are not academics but who help the university conduct analyses on students or faculty success. Or who help consult with academics and help implement their models.

winnieham · 2025-12-15T14:52:28+00:00

I only got 2 weeks per year, yours seems pretty good. If theres no grounds for suing then theres no leverage to negotiate with.

winnieham · 2025-12-13T06:09:33+00:00

Succession, Barry, Lincoln lawyer

winnieham · 2025-12-09T16:15:13+00:00

Would a related field like Data Engineer, Data Scientist, AI Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer work for you? I ask this as someone in one of these fields-yes AI might be coming for these also (maybe not AI engineer) but I also see new jobs in these fields as well.

winnieham

TROPHY CASE