What to Do When You Don’t Get Any Credit

Let’s face it. Data engineers often don’t get any credit. The praise rains down on the data scientists, but in the data engineering desert there isn’t any credit raining down.

This isn’t fair and it’s something I hear from data engineers consistently. Some are annoyed and disheartened by the lack of credit. Some are ready to quit because they see their careers going nowhere and they won’t get a promotion.

Let’s start with a few harsh realities. The CxOs, VPs, and other business people don’t really care about the fact that you’re using the latest technology, have unit tests, or have a scalable system in place. They care about the business value created by the data. (They only sort of care about these details when something goes wrong.)

You’ve probably seen the phrase that “data is the new gold.” I agree with that statement. The issue is that data in and of itself is relatively worthless. Data only becomes gold once it is transformed into something that makes the business money or allows for a decision to be made.

If you think about the data value chain, the data engineering part usually doesn’t create the business value — it facilitates the creation of business value. The data scientists and data analysts are the ones most commonly creating this business value. They’re the ones who are front and center when some kind of analytic or insight is shown.

So, how do you start to get credit in your organization for what you do? As data engineers, we think that management should be interested in the technologies the organization is using — they aren’t. That just isn’t going to change.

Instead, we as data engineers need to start focusing on what the business people are interested in. We need to get in the habit of talking in language that they understand and care about. We need to explain that the analytics are only possible as a direct result of the data pipelines we’ve created.

We need to start tooting our own horns. Maybe the data scientists will even start tooting horns for us too. Start getting better at speaking the business language and the credit, raises, and promotions will rain down upon you.