What to Learn for Your Career Path

The most common question I get asked is "What do I need to learn?" related to a given career path like Data Engineer, Data Scientist, Data Analyst, or other role. The answer is simpler than you may think. Join me as I resolve this question and put you on the right path.

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[donatusajaezu]

From the bottom of my heart, I just want to say thank you so much for this, I work as a data engineer but started off as a web developer, I have never really known how to actually organise the work of a data engineer and you just helped me with that. Now i know what and where exactly to focus on. Thanks once again.

[Noobsmove]

Honestly at this day and age, the strongest weakpoints i see in people starting in the field is not that they lack tools like programming languages knowledge in platforms like databricks. If they don't know them yet they are mostly quick to learn.

If there is an actual issue, it lies way deeper. Lack of understanding in core concepts like Data normalization, dimension and fact tables, measures in multidimensional Data models. Or being able to derive architecture and data requirements from talking to a customer. Those are difficult hurdles for beginners.

I feel like people rush to learn tools, before learning what to do with them.

My analgoy is someone who mastered the tools of carpentry, like saw and hammer but still jas no good idea how to use them to build a good chair^^

[JimRohn-uc]

Could we have some videos on “One Big Table (OBT)” data modeling as well please? I especially love your videos on Spark!

[ChrisUK]

I spent the week learning about Microsoft Synapse including Data Factory watching YouTube reading Microsoft documentation then playing around trying to do things. This has been hard, I easily understand the concepts and the architecture but doing things like Dataflows etc has been hard. I came to the conclusion and your video re-enforces this is to focus on a small set of tools, I think the Cloud technology's have so many tools and some of them do the same things that it feels like there is too much to learn. I think learning Apache Spark and Databricks seems a better idea as it is a core technology and widely used, then I shall maybe expand my knowledge of some the Azure toolset. For me I have 28 years data industry experience, writing SQL, various DB programming languages, scripting languages then moving onto integration tools like SAP Data Services and then Talend. I think Databricks and Apache spark with be easier to grasp and master than trying to pick up all the different Azure tools based on my background. Thanks as always Bryan, love your videos they are so helpful and I have just bought your book on Kindle. So I shall be full time learning DataBricks reading your book, watching your videos and trying it out.

[JoesMarineRush]

Great video. Many thanks for sharing these thoughts. I like that you emphasized familiarity and mastery, and that you need to make a decision on where to dedicate your time to master.

[NagaVenkateshgavini]

Please make vidoes on DWH and Data Modeling, your videos are valuable

[awadelrahman]

Your content is very appreciated!! So practical and direct to the point!
Any recommendation for Data Architect (or what they sometimes call Data cloud and analytics Architect), any suggestions for such career path in terms of the core knowledge etc? Thanks