Data Analyst: Career Suicide, Or Is It?

Preamble

Recently, I just got a message from one of my friends on a certain topic about career:

Friend: I've just made a decision to leave my goal for backend eng and mlops, mainly cos i tried it over and over again
Friend: And I keep on failing but it stems from i dont enjoy it thus im not motivated
Friend: So i keep the things i actually enjoy, the last time i remember was when i was working as da and finding potential improvement in the business, market.
Friend: However, I havent found like an example of someone who's in data analytics who become a vp or higher in a big company especially abroad that i know off. Whereas i know tons of backend who managed to move abroad
Friend: Do you see or know anyone whos had an international career in da?

These questions were so loaded that I can’t help but create a blogpost answering them from a more in-depth perspective. This writing will be akin to a stateflow of my brain; I wrote it as I went, so please keep that in mind.

Your Current Job vs Your Ideal Career

Let’s assume you currently do have a job. But the job is just such a soul-crushing experience that you really want to leave. I won’t know what kind of failing you experience, but dare I guess one of these scenarios:

  1. You’re looking, trying, and failing to find a new opportunity somewhere else, in the same field / adjacent to your current job
  2. You’re trying and failing to bring the best to your work at your current job

Either way, motivation, as my friend mentioned above, is mostly the root cause of it. When you don’t feel motivated, then everything else feels like falling apart. And I get it, I do. I’m experiencing the same thing over and over, and even today, I wouldn’t dare say that I’ve overcome everything.

Now, let’s try to answer the question

Friend: However, I havent found like an example of someone who's in data analytics who become a vp or higher in a big company especially abroad that i know off. Whereas i know tons of backend who managed to move abroad
Friend: Do you see or know anyone whos had an international career in da?

What Makes The DA Career Path Seem So Short?

Let’s answer the question: why doesn’t there seem to be a DA who has risen to a career higher than, say, VP on an engineering team?

From my perspective, the root cause IMO is often how it mixes between Business Ops and Engineering, and how, from a higher-position perspective, these people are often not that desirable to lead.

DA often falls under the ‘curse’ of cross-functional roles:

  • It’s not truly an engineering role
  • It is also not truly a business role

Higher positioned roles (let’s assume C level) will always require a broad but specific skillset that is usually not well-covered by people who started as a DA. Let’s list the kinds of C-level roles and how DAs fit into the mix:

  • Chief Marketing Officer (CMO): Hard because it requires a pivot from data modeling to brand psychology and creative storytelling.
  • Chief Technology Officer (CTO): Hard because it requires mastering full-stack engineering and system architecture, while DAs focus on data outputs rather than building the underlying software.
  • Chief Product Officer (CPO): Hard because it requires a pivot to UX design and product vision, shifting focus from analyzing user behavior to actively building the user experience.
  • CDO, CAO, CAIO, CSO: Roles that most likely fit well for DAs, but unfortunately they’re very niche and often roles that aren’t available in most companies.

Long story short, the DA career path is indeed far from ideal when dealing with career progression that requires a broader skillset in a specific general direction.

Why This Doesn’t Really Matter

I am being honest, I do not have anyone in mind with a role that was originally a DA who has now taken a C-level role at any company, nor any generalized role for that matter.

But TBH, why does it matter?

Let me be honest with you: a career very rarely fits your ideal. Do not fret too much over what kind of peak you can achieve vs what you can actually achieve today.

If what you want to do today is DA, then do it! Find a role that suits you, apply, do the job. Once you’re in, I bet it will not take you longer than a year before you find some other fascinating problem within the company that needs your expertise. Your role will change by that point; there’s a very high chance that you will not work as a DA for very long. But is that a problem?

Job descriptions and roles are very often misleading for employees. It is actually very rare for a job to actually fit under certain boxes. Take myself, for example.

  • My last job title was Senior Backend Engineer. My job? It was pretty much Fullstack; I managed infra, database, data pipeline, and even Frontend and Mobile at some point.
  • My current job says I’m a Senior Fullstack Software Engineer, yet my jobdesk is pretty much exclusively Mobile Apps development.

Jobdesks and responsibilities expand and contract as needed; neither of my roles actually fits its job description, and that’s okay.

How It Ties Between Backend, MLOps, and DA Roles

Back to reality now. Your job now is Backend or MLOps, and you’re absolutely sure that this is not the passion for you, and your passion is DA. Then you have 2 options:

  • Find a problem within your company that you believe you can take on where you are effectively acting as a DA. Propose to your boss, create an internal opportunity, hell, start working on it secretly and present it with a bang to the rest of your team.
  • Go ahead and find DA Jobs. And if you believe that there are no internal opportunities, then there’s nothing wrong with just starting to apply for DA roles. Don’t get stuck on what kind of ideal career you strive for. You can go anywhere.

So that’s the end of my rambling here. I know it’s not really conclusive, but I hope this helps you to answer your feeling of uncertainty. Thanks!

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