This blog post is Human-Centered Content: Written by humans for humans.
Having recently been brought on as one of InterWorks’ newest Data Engineers, I wanted to compile a list of advice that I’ve found helpful during the onboarding process. Hopefully, if you’re in a similar position of starting your data engineering journey, this will make your start just a little bit easier.
1. First and Foremost, Take a Breath
“Great, Now What’s the Next Thing?”
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably been working for a long time studying for certs, building personal projects, upskilling, reading tech blogs, etc. all in hopes to nab the coveted “Data Engineer” position you want. For me, it was so consuming that I may have been just a little bit obsessive about it. But now I am a Data Engineer. I’m in the position I’ve been working so hard for. So, why is it that I’m now like, “Oh, look at this nice shiny boot.dev website that can teach me all I want to know about back-end development. Maybe I should start doing that now…”
No. I shouldn’t.
What I should do is slow down.
There’s nothing wrong with looking forward to the “next thing,” but sometimes it’s a trap. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was, “Don’t spend so much time and effort living for the future that you neglect the present.” Or, in the words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it.”
Right now, you’ve gotten the coveted “Data Engineer” role you’ve been working so hard for.
Take a breath
Refocus.
Appreciate where you are and how you got here. Learn what you need to learn to perform.
BUT Don’t “Burn Out” Before You Even Go a Lap.
This point is shorter. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Everybody deals with imposter syndrome. You just started.
You were hired because you were candidate that was determined to be the most viable for the job (unless you lied on your resume… Don’t do that). You will learn. You will be a good data engineer. You will be able to understand that r/dataengineer post (maybe). You will be as technical as that team member who has coded for 20 years. But not overnight. Give yourself grace and time to learn and develop.
Meet the People. Make Connections.
This may seem less important than learning the tools you think you’re behind in or setting up all the productivity hacks you think you’ll need on your new work laptop, but even though “Data Engineer” is a technical position, your work is to build things that make other peoples’ lives easier.
You should know who those people are. You should understand what those people need.
And, if you are like me and have a team for the first time in your working career, those are the people you need to be able to learn from. So, spend time with them and learn from them. Spend time with the business users/stakeholders/interested parties/uninterested parties. That will help you understand your role and the value you are expected to bring more than learning how to build your own chatbot that will never get used, even by you.
2. If Your Onboarding Didn’t Provide One, Make a Checklist
Organize Your Thoughts. Prioritize Your Learning.
First line of defense: ask your manager what your priorities should be. Everybody always has a lot of work to do, and onboarding/training is very tough for teams to pull off seamlessly. If you haven’t gotten direction, seek it out. They won’t (or shouldn’t) feel bothered and will likely be appreciative of the initiative. Ask them how you should prioritize your learning.
Sometimes, though, people are busy, and onboarding is unorganized. You need some sort of structure even if you have to make it yourself. Even if the structure you give yourself ends up being wrong. Do it anyways.
Give yourself tasks and goals for your learning and training. Learn the business and what it does, how it does it, and for whom does it do it? Incrementally make progress and you will already be performing in the eyes of your manager when they inevitably do finally get time to meet with you.
Learn your stack.
Again, focus on the fundamentals. Take the time necessary to understand your company’s tech stack, how it works together and your place in it. Could include learning specific tools (DW, ETL tools, etc.), but always includes learning the business’ data. You can know all the tools available to a data engineer and still not be effective in your job if you don’t know what your company does and what their data entails.
As you learn what the stack is, identify your gaps. Your company builds DBT models for DW transformations and you’ve never worked with DBT? There’s probably (there is, I checked) free resources to help you learn and understand DBT. The same goes for most any data stack tool you can think of.
3. Remember, It’s Still a Job
You Are More Than Your Job.
I must admit, this advice was outsourced, but I, and probably you, needed to hear it.
In our onboarding session with InterWorks’ COO, Johnnie Hurns, the question was asked (he actually asked it to himself since he wanted to answer it, but that’s neither here nor there), “What is the most important advice you can give to someone starting with InterWorks?” His answer? “Remember, it’s just a job.”
You will, inevitably, grow into your position and you will become a valuable contributor. In the meantime, don’t neglect the other areas in your life where you want to grow because you have blinders and you’re obsessive about succeeding. Don’t stay up at night thinking and fretting about your job.
Your job is not your whole life. It can feel very stressful allowing yourself to “turn off” when you go home at night.
What happens if I can’t get back into the flow I had? What happens if the email I read and didn’t respond to immediately makes someone mad? Am I meeting expectations? Should I have done that differently?
These thoughts will invade and set up camp as soon as you let them. Work will be there tomorrow. Put your best foot forward. Perform to the best of your ability. Then, live life.
Allow yourself to have personal fitness goals, hobbies and personal relationships. Find time to explore. Spend time with people you love.
And now you’re probably thinking, “Did I just read a whole article about advice to new Data Engineers that had practically nothing to do with Data Engineering and could be applied to anyone starting a new position?”
Yup.
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