Promotions for Analytics Engineers
How to know what the next best step is for you as an analytics engineer
Have you ever noticed that analytics engineers have been a thousand different things in their previous careers? I’ve met analytics engineers who used to be teachers, product owners, mechanical engineers, and even music majors!
Analytics engineers are communicators, problem-solvers, creatives, and strategists. Each of our unique pasts makes us stand out as analytics engineers for this reason!
Anyone can be an analytics engineer and an analytics engineer can become whatever they wish to be. There are so many skills that you spend time developing that can be applied to any career.
While software engineers have clear paths to being promoted, it may seem murkier for analytics engineers. However, the truth is, there are so many more paths that you can take as you progress through your career.
You can become a manager, deepen your role as an individual contributor (IC), or branch out into different areas of the business.
In this article, we’ll discuss the different paths you can take, how to know which is for you, and how to get there.
And, I you’re not yet an analytics engineer but looking to land your first analytics engineering role, I’m thinking about launching something just for you. You can add yourself to the waitlist here.
Becoming a manager
Many engineers look at becoming a manager as a natural next step in their career progression. I’m on a mission to turn this idea on its head. However, we’ll get to this later.
Management is a great next step for those who want to focus on strategic initiatives, enjoy working closely with people, don’t mind meetings over focus time, and like to plan. It’s often the soft skills that shine for those who decide to become managers.
Analytics engineers make great managers because of the balance of business and technical skills they juggle. They have lots of practice speaking with stakeholders and engineers, knowing how to tailor their communication style to their audience.
This being said I’ve seen many people become managers who probably shouldn’t become managers… They’d rather be focusing on highly technical problems and their own path to growth compared to helping their team grow. This is why it’s so important that we stop thinking management is the “next best step” in one’s career growth and look at advancing as an IC as just as important.
Management is a hard role and the skills required to be a good manager are quite different than those of an IC. It’s often not the natural progression in one’s career as an IC, despite what it’s made to seem like.
Advancing as an IC
Analytics engineers have a tall ladder to climb in terms of the levels they can reach. There truly are analytics engineers of all skill levels and years of experience.
Because analytics engineers possess such a wide range of skills, from business to technical, there are many different areas for them to deepen their knowledge. They quickly can become the master of all trades at a company, proving their value as an advancing IC.
I recommend deepening your skills as an analytics engineer and sticking on the IC path if you enjoy your focus time, love learning new things, and are fueled by the feeling of solving a tough problem.
To advance as an IC, work on sharpening your communication skills with stakeholders. Ask lots of questions to get to the roots of their problems rather than doing exactly what they ask. Most of the time, there’s a better solution out there to get the answer they’re looking for!
And, of course, deepen your technical knowledge. If you find there’s an area of the data stack that nobody in your team has complete ownership over, take the initiative to learn that thing front and back. Become the expert and then suggest ways to improve efficiency or save money with that tool.
Communication and initiative are always the things that stand out most when trying to get promoted to the next level as an analytics engineer!
Pivoting to a different domain
If you aren’t intrigued by a management role or continuing down the IC path, you are in luck. Because of the business domain of an analytics engineer, this knowledge is easily transferable to all areas of the business, or even engineering.
Pivoting to a different role within a company could be good for someone who needs constant change and likes to explore all different areas of a subject. Maybe marketing is most interesting to you for a few years and then building applications piques your interest. Your unique background as an analytics engineer allows you to branch out.
Analytics engineers gain a unique perspective of business processes and different technical domains, making their addition to a team priceless. It allows you to become a product owner, software engineer, growth analyst, or data engineer. No matter the role, you can offer unique solutions to all of the problems that these teams face.
If you’re looking to pivot, talk with people on the types of teams that you’d like to work for. Ask them about the problems that they are facing and try to offer a data person’s perspective. Spend time thinking about how they approach problems and how you can help them.
➡️ Have any career tips for advancing to the next level? Leave them below!
Don’t forget to join me live on Substack at 8 am PST tomorrow Friday, September 26th, for The Friday Grind. Tomorrow’s theme will be about data modeling and when to model a business process versus change it, inspired by this post.
See you next week!
Madison
Unfortunately, many organizations provide no perspective or career path for ICs. It is deeply rooted in the culture that classic leadership roles are the golden way for growth. The root cause is that the paths offered by an organization is shaped by its leadership, who have all taken the same route.