An Interview With… Olivia, an Analytics Developer

The newest part of our blog series ‘An Interview with …’ asks Olivia, an analytics developer about how she learn about data and what an analytics developer actually does. Olivia is also a data science Masters student, SQL trainer and all round data superstar.

Working with data and technology can be difficult and overwhelming for a lot of people. So, we at Taught By Humans are running a series of interviews with professionals to help demystify these topics for you. How are data and technology useful and/or significant within different roles? How do people learn about data and technology and their applications? How can we keep our knowledge of data and technology up to date? Our interviewees will be helping us to answer these questions and more.

Our newest interviewee is Olivia, an Analytics Developer working for Northern Gas Networks. She answered a few questions for us relating specifically to her experience of working with data and technology, using it un her job and her perspective on methods of learning.

The Interview

Can you tell me your name and what you do?

I’m Olivia and I just recently started my job as an analytics developer.

What do you do in that job?

I’m an engineer at a gas engineering company. They want to start using the data again, and gain value from the data. So they’re doing loads of reporting, and starting to create reports and dashboards for the business. My job is to create the dashboards and create the reports, and help people use dashboards as well.

We’re big into spreadsheets over at Taught by Humans. Do you use spreadsheets often? Do you hate them? Do you love them? How do you feel about spreadsheets?

Well, I actually love spreadsheets. And I will talk about spreadsheets to try and get everyone on to spreadsheets because I love making lists. And then that’s kind of advanced into spreadsheets. I personally make my own spreadsheets. I’ve got like a budget in one that I’ve been using for like two years now. And it’s like my Bible, I just a look at it every day just for releasing endorphins. I just go by that. Then I’m trying to influence other people to use a budgeting spreadsheet, but they just roll their eyes every time I say the word spreadsheet.

I also have budgeting spreadsheets, so I completely relate. When you’re trying to get people to use them, what do you think the cool features are that are often overlooked in spreadsheets? Why do people hate them and why shouldn’t they?

They actually think it’s really hard to do sums. It’s not, it’s the easiest thing in the world, they’re doing calculations for you. You do one sum, then you just drag and drop across the whole spreadsheet. You only have to think once and you can just copy and paste it for the years ahead. It’s crazy.

You’ve mentioned you use spreadsheets outside of work, you use SQL in work and I’m sure you use some other technologies. How do you actually go about learning new things when you want to learn them?

I like to look online first. First I started like HTML and CSS back when I was like 16 and just used Code Academy to learn how to do that. Not very well — that’s not my chosen language. But at least I knew I could learn myself online. I decided to move into I wanted to do data. And I started with the SQL courses on Cloud Academy. And then did some Udemy courses on business intelligence, because that’s what I wanted to go into. And I was doing some Udemy courses which included SQL. Then I did that while I started a Masters as well, which had like two modules that were Data Warehousing in depth, so that was SQL is as well. Then I did volunteer teaching for Code First: Girls with two others, teaching SQL. And you learn even more when you’re teaching someone. Another good way to learn is by like, things going wrong, like setting up like MySQL Workbench having to trawl through all the forums. Thinking why is it not working? Sometimes the only way to do it is to just get it done, break it and be like, Okay — what do I? How do I fix that?

You’re quite far along in your tech journey on lots of different things, you have had a couple of roles. If tomorrow someone thinks — Okay, I want to learn data — what advice would you give them, but where to start?

I think everybody thinks that you need to start coding straight away. And that’s really not the case. I think that’s what puts a lot of people off. They think they need to sit there all day coding. But I entered tech through my Bachelor’s, which was more theory than technical — it wasn’t computer science. I would probably say to read some books. I read so many books during lockdown — textbooks. And they’re not technical. There was one on how lots of tech is designed for men — Technically Wrong. That’s a good way to start is by reading because there’s a lot of books out there that explain it in non technical words. Then if you want to decide if you want to code. I was doing questionnaires, to see which coding language fit me the most, because there’s so many. I really didn’t know what I’m supposed to choose.

That’s really good advice about not needing to code originally. There’s loads of different jobs where you don’t need to code. You can be a project manager and work on really cool tech stuff. And never, ever, ever, ever touch code and influence all this tech stuff. In your role as an analytics developer, how much would you say your role is coding and data versus people?

I would say some is a lot of it is a lot of coding. And, the majority of the day, but you’re also working with, I’d say it’s code, and then it is working with people. But then my previous job, where I worked as in SAP development, that was coding, but a lot of the people because you’re under trying to understand what their requirements are. It’s the same in this job — you are speaking with the employee to find out what they want to know, and how, what screens they use to find it out and where the data comes from. Because at the end of the day, they’re the ones that are going to be using it so you need to fit what they want. A lot of it is a lot of coding, but it’s a lot of investigative work — you can see this on the front end, but where does that data come from? Where does it sit and how does it connect other different tables connect that? That’s what I like it makes me feel like I’m personally a P.I. [Private Investigator]

I have to say that’s my favourite thing about data as well actually — digging around and trying to solve something, working out how it all fits together. It’s just like a fun puzzle.

Do you have any other advice for people who are trying to learn a little bit about data?

You know, tech is for everyone. And there’s a place for everyone into. And so, you know, just go for it and just jump at the opportunity.

Takeaways

So, what can we learn from this interview?

Takeaway #1: “You only have to think once”when using spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are easier than people believe, but often people are reluctant to use them.

Takeaway #2: Tech is for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re just learning to code or you never want to write a learn of code.

Takeaway #3: Reading books is a great way to learn. There are lots of non-technical books out there which can inform and inspire.

Thanks to Olivia for taking the time to speak to Taught By Humans and for sharing such valuable advice and insight. If this interview with Olivia has been useful or of interest to you, she will be speaking on our International Women Day Panel — Our Data Confident Journey — sign up now.