What to Expect in the First 10 Days as a Newbie Data Engineer

Starting your Data Engineer journey

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Hello everyone,

This one will be short and to the point.

What to Expect in Your First Days as a Data Engineer?

Well… I know that all of us focused our learning on SQL, Python, cloud platforms, pipelines, and Airflow, … As we should have, that will get us the job. But! Some other things to consider are:

• Agile project management (what is it, how does it work). You will be confused in your first meetings, no doubt. It will all sound like a foreign language to you. But don’t worry, it gets better every day!
• One of the platforms for agile PM will help, for example, Jira. Check out some of the many tutorials on how to use it, how does it work etc.
• Asking for credentials — you need to know what is given to you and how to connect to their database, cloud platform, repo etc. Do not, and I’ll repeat that, DO NOT be afraid to ask questions. No one will evaluate your questions, they will expect them.
• Git and GitHub (here is a great resource to learn: Learn Git Branching )
• Learn how to read and write documentation — we all use different courses, tutorials and platforms for learning. But I know a lot of us don’t have the habit to read the documentation, let alone write it. Start doing it, make it a habit!

In the beginning, you will be in a lot of meetings, that will help you catch up and inspire you to ask questions about what you didn’t understand, rather than having someone explain all of it in their own way and leave you at that.

My team has very experienced and talented people. I am in luck for they have accepted me so fast and are available to me for all my questions. Keep that in mind when looking for a job. Try and investigate a little about the team, you should like them and be happy to work with them.

One initiative you can have right away is to dive into the data and show your interest in how it is used. That will set the tone and inspire your team to push you in the right direction!

Happy job hunting and good luck! Make sure to follow me for more content :)

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All the best,

Violeta 🌸