These are my personal notes from the Maven Analytics Mavens of Data Live Show, from the Level Up: From Analyst to Sr. Analyst episode on June 13, 2024.
Host: John Pauler
Guests: Drew Mooney and Katie Underwood
What separates a analyst from a senior analyst?
Technical side
Think abstractedly from a technical
Picking the best solution? (e.g. entry level picks just a solution)
Include alternative solutions
Flexible and wanting to learn something new
Senior analysts think about the long term:
Will it work for the next year?
Can someone step in and take it over?
Could they create something that applies to their problems
Soft skills
Entry level has:
Manager gives you what you’re doing
Clear expectations
Senior level has:
Project management
Manager gives a few lines
Expects you to figure it out and do it
Become more of a partner to everyone
How to make leap to senior analyst?
Build strong relationships
Communicate well
Take interest in other people’s projects
Ask people really good questions
Let someone influence you (aka be willing to learn)
Taking someone’s solution from another team and apply it to your own
Be opened minded and learn from anyone
How to deal with multiple projects and manage it?
Get PMP certifications is one way
What are all the different pieces? (learn)
Stakeholder communication
Timeline
Budget considerations
Realize everyone works on projects → we all have ability to work on projects
Learn from others
How do you promote someone as a manager?
See someone on the growth path
Good stakeholder feedback
Trust between you and the stakeholder
How do you go for a promotion?
Let manager of your goal
You know if you’re in that position or not (you have a feeling)
Definitions of Analyst vs. Senior Analyst
Katie:
Entry level analyst:
Has a lot of the work defined for them
Doing a lot of repeatable tasks
Smaller tasks
Manager is working daily with you
Senior analyst:
Work more independently
Work by themselves a lot
Bigger projects/tasks
More experience
Drew
Senior analysts have a growth mindset, take ownership, and are proactive.
What’s the scale of your work?
You’re bringing projects to your manager and driving projects
Steering the whole company with data
How can I be more proactive?
It’s not just doing what you’re told.
Katie:
Examples from her job:
Data quality checks, what have we done that doesn’t happen again
Quarterly audit in Excel → Automated task and put it in Tableau
Finding a new ETL tool
Improve a process
Looking at the work you already have and see if you can do it better or faster
“Automate yourself out of your job”
Promotion Process
Katie:
If you want a promotion tell your manager you want a promotion
Promotion needs to be approved in annual budget (generally speaking)
Drew:
People don’t want to be surprised about these last minute requests
The manager is probably comparing you against other analysts
Manager is looking at what you’re doing to help
General Thoughts:
Thinking about your weaknesses and finding areas of improvement. Ask “what do you think I need to work on before the next promotion cycle?”
It’s not just your manager’s opinion but everyone else. Think about your brand within the organization. Do they know who you are? Will they come to bat for you?
How effective is the team as a whole?
Education do you need a masters degree?
Katie:
What’s your own learning style? Is formal education for you?
Financial investment - large companies typically have some sort of tuition reimbursement
Not sure if a master’s degree differentiates your right now
She personally uses portfolio’s and resumes to hire people (not just masters degree)
Drew:
Advise people not to go for masters degree unless you’ve been in the field for a bit (you might not end up going through it)
All programs are not equal
Don’t jump straight from undergrad to masters unless you know you really want it
He did the Georgia Tech online (cost around $10k)
What makes a good project?
Katie:
Entry level
Only 3-4 projects
Excel - nested IFs, pivot tables, data quality check (e.g. importing dirty data and then clean the data)
SQL - Looking for code comments, legibility, easy to read
Tableau / Power BI - dashboards
High quality projects
Understand it and communicating impact > heavily technical
Topic: Data that’s relevant to the industry you’re in or make it unique to you
Senior analyst portfolio
Getting your own project
Combining tools together (e.g. one project uses Excel AND SQL)
More difficult / challenging business questions
Do you know of any good certificates?
Drew:
There’s no real certificate that he looks for
But if he’s looking at two candidates with the same qualifications but one has a certificate he will choose that person because they are focusing on growing
He looks for people with growth trajectory
Good way to structure you’re learning
How to handle the politics of your company?
Katie:
It’s less about you than you think it is
Your manager has to want a promotion of you
Be aware of if the manager is on your side
If they aren’t move to a different team or company
How to develop business acumen as a data analyst?
Katie:
Depends on where you sit in a company (business side vs. dev team)
Technical - Understand business knowledge so you can check code for logic and quality
Business - have calls stakeholders / team to sit with them and figure out
Drew:
Shadowing your business partners and try to understand their goals
Understand how your data is generated (e.g. website event, factory widget, etc.)
What database created it?
What does a timestamp actually mean?
Learning as much as you can about the business through public reports, newsletters
Informs everything you do as a data analyst
Misc.
What keeps you moving up is the soft skills / business knowledge. Not just the technical skills.