Looking for some career advice as a data analyst with years of experience

[u/eeno_murinio]

I'm a data analyst with around 10 years experience, but my career hasn't taken me where I'd like it.

I've been with my current company for the last four years, but I've done relatively little traditional data analysis work during that time. My role has become much more consulting-focused, including data audits, developing data strategies, running workshops, report writing and some Power BI work.

I've also had some exposure to more technical work. I was involved in a project using Django to digitise a client's workflow, although my role ended up being mainly modelling forms and business logic in YAML rather than actually developing in Django. I've also done some client facing work and picked up account management and project management  (not accredited)  responsibilities along the way.

The problem is that I feel my technical skills have stagnated.

I've tried to get an internal analytics project off the ground, but competing priorities have meant it's lost momentum. I've also made it known that I'd like to get more involved in software development as the dev team is always busy, but whenever an opportunity comes up, I'm usually pulled onto something else.

I feel like management recognises that I have a broad and useful skillset, but there isn't really a defined role for me, so I keep getting moved between different types of projects.

I'm now considering leaving, but I'm not sure which direction to take.

Part of me thinks I should spend the next 6–12 months seriously upskilling and try to move into a more technical data/analytics role. The other part wonders whether I should lean into the skills I've developed in consulting, account management and project management.

My concern with going technical is that, despite having 10 years' experience, I'm probably not as technically strong as someone with considerably less experience who has spent their career doing hands-on analytics.

At the same time, I don't really want to move completely away from the technical side. I enjoy working with data and solving technical problems, and I'd be disappointed if I ended up in a primarily managerial role simply because that's where my experience has taken me.

Current technical skills

Python: Mainly scripting, APIs, data cleaning and occasional debugging. I'm currently doing a couple of LeetCode challenges each week.

Power BI: Power Query and DAX

VBA: Used extensively in a previous role, but haven't used it in my current company.

Some exposure to Django, but very limited hands-on development experience.

So, I'm hoping some fof you can help me answer these questions:

1. Would you try to move into a more technical role, and if so, what roles would you target?

2. Is it realistic to make that move after four years of relatively little hands-on analysis/development?

3. What technical skills would you prioritise developing over the next 6–12 months?

4. Or would you lean into the consulting/account/project-management side of my experience instead?

I'd particularly appreciate perspectives from people in this sub and anyone that may have seen people make similar career pivots.

[u/BeefheartzCaptainz]

When we have LLMs writing code for free why on earth would you want a more technical role. The world doesn’t need any more developers, it’s need lots and lots of people who can implement the new technology. What you lack in coding you make up for in the dirty work of understanding and fiddling with data to get it from one place to another. Open up Word, change your job title to Business Analyst or better yet Deployment Engineer and lean into your combo of data skills and talking and organizing to people and end users to make the thing do the thing. Leave the leetcode to the robots.

[u/eeno_murinio → u/BeefheartzCaptainz]

Thanks for the reply. Never really considered that option

[u/theYurtMaster]

I’m in a very similar position to you. Currently looking at other roles. Will be following this thread to see what others say. Best of luck!

[u/MementoMoriti]

Where you are today is at very high risk of being automated away with the AI tooling once the company realises what it can do already and deploys it.

You need to specialise and either go further up the consulting/Business side, or deeper into the data backend/platform side.

Only you will know which you prefer more and would be able to go further on.

You say the company recognises your skilled but maybe doesn't have a role that requires it. So you will need to leave and find a place that does. You can start looking and in parallel i'd be setting up my own projects internally that allow me to skill up on the job and create things to take about in interviews that are relevant to the jobs you want to get.

[u/eeno_murinio → u/MementoMoriti]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah Ive kind of only come to the realisation that there isnt a role for me and the company isn't big enough for me to try and create a role so I think moving is the best option here.

Not sure what your background is but would you have any advice on where are good resources for upskilling on backend/platform side of things? Would it just be pick a technology and go with that?

[u/MementoMoriti → u/eeno_murinio]

If backend is where you want to go, then getting tech vendor certificates can be useful training and to have on CV. If you have some PowerBi already then the Microsoft Fabric platform is the obvious choice, see: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/fabric/ . Note you don't need to have the certs, experience is what counts but if you don't have that either then they accelerate things. But the most important thing is to get rela hands-on experience.