Don't Become a Data Analyst if

Main ideas / lessons

• Building dashboards/reporting is a major part of the job

  • Many data analysts spend a large portion of their time creating reports and dashboards.
  • If you don’t enjoy dashboarding, the video argues you likely won’t enjoy the role.

• Compensation may not match the required coding effort

  • Data analysts can earn good salaries, but the video claims this pay is not comparable to salaries for more programming-heavy roles like:
    • Data Scientist
    • Data Engineer
    • Software Engineer
  • It notes that data analysts are expected to know SQL, and some are also expected to know Python, but argues the compensation doesn’t “match” those coding requirements.

• Using the role as a stepping stone to other careers is a “myth” (or at least misguided)

  • The video claims it’s common for people to become data analysts believing it will help them become data scientists.
  • It argues this is inefficient because data scientist skills (e.g., statistics and machine learning) are what matter, and dashboard/reporting skills aren’t necessary for a data scientist.

Method / instruction format (as presented)

• Do not become a data analyst if:
  • You don’t like building dashboards (because a large chunk of your time will be spent on reporting/dashboard work).
  • You expect the salary to be comparable to more software-engineering-heavy careers (the video suggests it is not).
  • You believe the data analyst path is required before becoming something else like a data scientist (the video discourages “wasting time” learning analyst dashboarding instead of directly pursuing data-science skills).

Speakers / sources featured

• An unidentified YouTube creator/speaker (the narrator who says “believe me” and references “my YouTube” for a longer video).