Data Analyst newsletter, September 2023

Hi Everyone, Happy almost Friday

I hope everyone had a lovely summer, had a chance to reenergize and get some rest.

There's over 1,800 of you currently subscribed to the newsletter, and I can't thank you enough for your support and for joining us on the journey.

Now, there are 3 things I'd like to share with you today.

1. We have partnered with Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue, as they are hiring for a senior data analyst role.
2. The next edition of our "Day in the life of a Data Analyst" is out, and this time we're chatting with Alex, who's currently working as a BI manager at AWS. We chat about his managerial experience, tips on building a personal portfolio, as well as dip our toes into what seems to be on the mind of pretty much everyone right now: Is AI a threat to data analysts?
3. An update to The Salary Guide, now also detailing data analyst salaries across different states in the United States.

Thank you for your continuous engagement and support,  

Alex @DataAnalyst.com

Shout-out: Are you a data analyst? Do you want to be featured on the site, sharing your experience, and career advice?

Please email me (alex@dataanalyst.com) and we'll organise - I love seeing the community grow and for people to share and learn from one another.

We also make a donation to a charity with each interview, so there's always a good cause aspect as well.

1. Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue are looking for a senior data analyst

We have partnered with Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue, who are looking for a senior data analyst.

This is an onsite role in Tigard, OR, and the ideal candidate brings 3 - 5 years of experience. The expected salary range for this role is $90,840 - $122,880.

Closing date for applications is 3rd September, at 11:59 PM Pacific

About TVFR:

Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue provides fire protection and emergency medical services to approximately 542,524 residents in one of the fastest growing regions in Oregon.

Our district has 28 fire stations staffed by more than 442 career firefighters, a volunteer fire station, a Command and Business Operations Center, a training facility, a South Operating Center, and a Logistics Service Center. Residents served by TVF&R benefit from the sophistication, economies of scale, and resources of a large fire district with the accessibility and community involvement of a small-town fire department.

2. Day in the Life of a Data Analyst - Alex @AWS

Another interview from our series has been published earlier today. In these interviews, we aim to share stories and experiences about the route to becoming a data analyst, keeping up with the skillset, recommendations to aspiring data analysts and much more.

Alex, who is a BI manager at AWS, has shared some fantastic insights, and I'd love to share his step-by-step advice on building a portfolio.

"I've been mentoring a few folks on this recently, ranging from college grads to mid-career individuals in non-tech roles. My recommendation to each is to build an end to end portfolio of work. An example is using python to web scrape information from a website and persist to a normalized data structure in a database, using SQL to write queries and analyze that information, and then use Tableau or PowerBI to visualize results and share insights. Each step of this process is important for a rockstar Data Analyst/BI Engineer and will showcase the capability to do the work for hiring managers."

Question of the Year: Wondering if AI/Chat GPT is a threat to data analysts?

You should read the full interview.

3. The Salary Guide update

We are continuing on our mission to building out DataAnalyst.com - not just as a job board, but also as an educational hub - from interviews with experienced professional, best practices, to advice about getting into the industry.

As mentioned in my previous updates, there's been couple of guides recently released.

How to become a data analyst guide which covers topics such as:

• understanding the role and responsibilities of a data analyst
• becoming a data analyst, and what it obtains - from education, experience, to technical and soft skills
• the well known not-so-secret hack - building your own portfolio
• career development and salary guide (yes, our own!)

The data analyst salary guide - which provides the overview of salaries in various industries - and also shows a more detailed view on each industry page, with a deep dive into how much entry level, senior and lead data analysts can earn depending on their experience.

Over the course of the summer, I've been restructuring some of the ways I collect and store data about available job roles, and I was able to expand the data analyst salary guide beyond just industry - now also detailing data analyst salaries across different states in the United States.

Now, as it usually is with this kind of exercise, lumping the data all together you come up with an insane range. On the other hand, if you split the data in 52 different ways, you'll get a whole different set of issues where N is not large enough to draw any conclusions - and for some states, there's simply no data at all.

As the site grows, and the number of jobs on the site increases, I do however believe that I'll be able to bring an addition source of information about salaries, complimenting those already available on other sites.

We've also released the August edition of Market Summary, you can see the full report in the blog section on the site as well.