In this issue, we will cover.
- The distribution of data jobs by primary technical skill (spoiler – Python & SQL win by a wide margin).
- The rise of operational analytics.
- Inspiring Tableau data visualizations
- Big data, big money
- Free learning resources on deep learning and a data engineering bootcamp
Which data skills are in demand?
On social media, it may appear that Machine Learning and AI are in high demand. That is true. The foundational data skills such as SQL and Python, however, have more than twice as many job openings.
With SQL, we can see that the Lindy Effect is in play here. According to this effect, SQL’s life expectancy should equal its current age.
Bottomline, ‘select * from tableA’ is not going away by 2070. It will help brush up on SQL skills. If you do believe, SQL skills are essential here are two free resources.
- SQL Playground by your truly – Provides a web-based SQL editor with data
- Style guide by Brooklyn data – Great for intermediate to advanced SQL users. thanks @BrooklynData
Going back to the job openings, here are the underlying job openings for key data skills on 1/1/2022.
The rise of operational analytics
The rise of RDS and cloud-native data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, bigquery etc.) means that data warehouse maintenance is a solved problem. What’s next?
Kleiner Perkins (one of the leading Venture Capital firms in Silicon Valley) thinks that the next frontier is in operational analytics. I couldn’t agree more.
(h/t) @buckymoore
In 15+ years of working with data, I have never heard a data professional complaining about fresh data. The delay in data refresh cycle is a tradeoff between resources and the business requirements. Nightly data refresh remains a stop-gap solution. Once the business grows the need for more real-time data for operational analytics is inevitable.
Data Visualization
Looking for design inspiration for your next dataviz? Kev and Kevin from flerlagetwins have compiled a list of their all-time favorite Tableau public data visualizations.
[lyte id=’9uQiIYPcxbw’ /]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uQiIYPcxbw
Big data, big money
First credit for this subtitle goes to Andy Pavlo. He is a professor of database systems group at CMU. If database technologies light you up, I suggest give him a follow.
In this 2021 review post, he talks about the database popularity and venture capital trends. The success of Snowflake has caused more venture capital dollars to database systems.
Learning resources & tools
Deep Learning Interviews is a free book to help you prepare for interviews. Written by Shlomo Kashani and Amir Ivry
DataTalks.club is hosting a data engineering bootcamp beginning January 17th, 2022. Event and registration details are available here. DataTalks is organized by Alexey Grigorev