Quote (zgodx @ Feb 14 2023 05:50am)
Hello there, interesting discussion going on here.
As a regular IT guy, I have no idea where to start so, I will just head to it.
The numbers you are quoting suggest to me you are living in the high standard part of the US where the IT industry must (from what I have only been told by colleagues and friends) encompass all positives and negatives to the extreme end - most stress, highest salaries, toughest competition and so on. Being anywhere in IT right now, even in Europe from what I see recently (unless you are developer/engineer and quite a gifted one if I might add) is a rough path to take. I am also in a big fintech company having lots of relationships with people working in crypto related organizations, high positions in the banking and insurance sector etc. and the area you are after namely business analyst, data analyst, data scientist, business owner, product owner and so on, is right now becoming kind of a niche. Why is that? The companies who are not strictly IT companies (not developing products to directly sell on the web so to say - websites, games, software services etc) use mainly tools developed by these other tech companies, big expensive enterprise tools for most of their needs - ERP, CRM, KPI measuring and such. This you might have also realized having gone though all those third party certifications and all. So, there are a lot of people willing to earn those certificates and as great as the demand is, the salary is usually not. Just being able to operate and understand them (run SQL queries, use Tableau, Power BI..) is enough for a starter position as other people noted, interviewers will be looking for more than that if you want to start higher. Unless referred by someone, your other experience might be ignored by the recruiters. My advice will be
1. Either accept that, start as junior (if financially feasible in your life) and prove within 6-12 months that you can bring a lot more value to the organization - you will get noticed and promoted long before that. As you have noted, the options are managing areas of business intelligence. Again, in my experience, those are a few positions in each company as opposed to let's say development leading roles.
2. Find out the product/system you understand the most from your previous line of work, check what is the status of the company developing e.g. how many other big businesses use the same tool, what is the stock if pub traded company developing that said tool, are a lot of customizations available to it , how much they can cost etc. and balance this with the available positions and their respective salaries in your area (or maybe not if remote is option?) and go with that.
Hope this sheds some light :) I moved from Operations through Business Analysis to Software Development within the past 11 years.
Amazing input my friend and much appreciated. I am actually well on my way through the journey since my first post and as you suggested, have found out some of these things along the way.
I decided to stick with insurance as my experience in the industry has allowed me to leverage that into interviews for not just beyond the JR level, but I have even had interviews the past week for level 2 positions internally. The managers in these departments (data analysis, project management, etc) were ecstatic when they realized my knowledge of the company and industry. Most commented that the certifications of SQL and others are very helpful but that they will save 6-12 months of training and networking with my internal knowledge of the systems and contacts inside the organization.
I had originally thought my experience would not apply, as you suggested. That may be the case if I had switched companies. Luckily I am at a fortune 100 with dozens of IT postings open everyday.
The input from everyone here has been most helpful - I am now in a position where I am likely to have several offers internally this week and may be able to leverage to a level 2 or right below Senior level type of Data Analysis position. I am also waiting to hear back on a Data Engineer position I had two interviews for. Will post updates and still looking forward to any more input.