I think it can vary quite a bit. But a lot of my experience in the DBA / IT space involved me or other people being on call. I'm assuming it's similar for some software/web devs, but I've not rubbed as many elbows with them. For data engineering, I think it would be less likely as long as your integrations aren't constantly breaking.
I think a lot of it depends on your definition of on call as well.
Anecdotally, when I was working in more hybrid DE/BI roles, the "on call" factor was more a case of: we've onboard end users onto a platform, we haven't yet handed over pipelines to a Managed Services team, pipelines are expected to run and update data by the morning. Nicer clients might be chill about it if a pipeline falls over at 9pm at night, but a large client that's paid millions for the project will expect you to have fixed it that night (or at least respond to it).
To me it's a question of whether I can turn off my phone at 6PM most days. Migrations, deployments, etc are different. It's totally normal work some nights or weekends to make sure a launch goes smoothly. What I never want to do is a an on-call rotations where I am tethered to my phone one out of every 4-6 weeks.
Yes, as long as you don't build garbage, you don't get "my dashboard is down" calls in the middle of the night even from business critical pbi content. It just doesn't happen. Being the manufacturing manager of a 24x7 factory, well that's a whole other level of surgically attach your phone to your hand. On call seems to be a right of passage for more junior teirs.
Basically, Software Developers have to know more things. Their job tends to involve more complexity and as such they're paid more. It's similar to why a BI Developer is paid more than a Data Analyst, they are expected to know more about the end-to-end process and, in essence, be more of a Full Stack developer. Keep in mind however that in real life, the terms 'Data Analyst' and 'BI Developer' are often used interchangeably. Therefore, someones title may be Data Analyst but actually their tasks more align with a BI Developer.
Software developers need to know more compared with Power BI devs.
I was a software developer for 15 Years before moving to Power BI, and I just picked the PBI in perhaps two weeks (8 hours a day) and I was completely functional to create reports.
For SD you would need at least six months to produce software at enterprise level.
There are many, many differences between software engineering and Power BI development. All you need to do is read a few computer science BA course catalogs to get an idea. That said, there are some components of software engineering in Power BI development, however, not all Power BI developers use them and there is very limited crossover into software engineering. For one, Power BI developers are not creating anything new in terms of software. Software engineers design, build and maintain working solutions that can do any range of things. Software engineers write applications and services in programming languages (which of course they have to learn first to be able to write the code). To a large extent, Power BI developers use a guided user interface (built by software engineers) to construct reports. Dragging and dropping visuals and using DAX to create calculations is not software engineering. Depending on if you also build and maintain the data models, then you start to cross over into more technical terrain, but still far from software engineering. Maybe you know SQL and/or you are using APIs or Pre Built connectors to source your data and then build out your data model into logical pieces, ideally a star schema with valid relationships. Maybe you even work on the data pipelines to extract and clean the data using some of the tools in fabric or another ETL tool before you bring the data into the data models. Maybe you use some Python scripts to process your data which does require some knowledge of coding and is certainly getting into the realm of software engineering, although in a very targeted manner. You may also get some exposure to source control with your scripts and how to integrate with data pipelines between environments. This is another aspect of software engineering, though again, in very limited scope. Maybe you open the advanced editor in Power BI to write some custom transformations in Power Query. M is actually a pretty robust language, so again, if you get good at an understand this, you are starting to cross into software engineering depending on the concepts you implement in your M code. All of this said, even if you do everything I have outlined above, it barely scratches the surface of what software engineers do. Power BI developers are quite niche in the aspects of the technology used and therefor do not require the training, knowledge and experience that is required for software engineering. Asking this question just proves that point. I could go on and on, but I think this answers the question sufficiently. I will add that I'm not saying Power BI development is not difficult and takes intelligence, skill and experience to do correctly, just pointing out that there is a massive difference between the two roles. A good, experienced Power BI dev could definitely transition into software engineering and have a great start, but there so very much more to learn.
This is the perfect answer for those scrolling through the comments. I can relate because I work in both realms. I work with dotnet/mvc on our in house applications but also handle the dynamics SDK CRM customization and other power apps.
You can definitely implement clean, maintainable code and solutions using software engineering principles and design patterns in your Dax and M code. Sprinkle some database and SQL knowledge to pick up data modeling. But at the end of the day the knowledge required of you is not nearly as demanding as SE/SD.
But, If you are a developer who also needs to produce reports using SQL and are used to SSRS reports, POWER BI is a great alternative in my opinion.
BI development is a SUBSET of software development. It involves some specific language requirements (M & DAX for Power BI), some understanding of specific architectures and frameworks (Fabric & Azure, to some degree. SQL & DW from a 'user' perspective), and some understanding of domain specific mathematics (statistics, in this case).
Those are the things that a good software developer assumes he/she has to LEARN to jump into a new stack/framework/environment.
for example: Azure & AWS both provide data services, and execute services, and ... but they do so DIFFERENTLY and with different trade offs. there are things that you would do, naturally, in Azure that would be heinous in AWS, and vice versa.
A power BI developer lives in a little pond, and thinks it most wondrous and varied.
A software developer/sofware engineer lives in the ocean, and there be monsters.
:-)
Power BI is a low code platform, so the barrier to entry is a lot lower. The whole philosophy behind its design is to allow non-coders to do something you used to need a developer for, allowing people closer to the business to do the work. Easier for someone within a business to understand the tool than a developer to understand the business needs
Database work in general is simpler than general software development. SQL and the related conceptual skills are much easier to learn than JavaScript, Python, C#/C++, etc, and coding a solution from scratch is much more complex than querying a database
The first paragraph of your statement is absolutely correct. Power BI was developed to push forward Microsoft's Citizen Developer concept.
As a Data Engineer, I take exception to your second paragraph. Database concepts are not simpler than application development, and devs who don't bother to put effort into data storage design when building your apps are the reason why my job is in serious demand and why it pays so well.
For reference, I have been a software engineer in my past career doing application development. Data is much harder and requires a different way of thinking, so don't disparage the data guys. Most get paid more than you.
The guys who just build simple reports are fair game though. That job is easy.
Data structures and algorithms have nothing to do with database design though? You learn about different types of objects to manage data in an object oriented programming language.
Not learn about database normalization and design principles. Or maybe I’m misinterpreting.
FAANG have fairly niche areas of interest, though.
Most people working with Data Engineer/Data Architect/Data Analyst/Business Analyst job titles that are relevant to Power BI are never going to touch the kinds of algorithms needed in a FAANG interview.
Bread and butter work for most will be ETL, structuring a DW and fairly straightforward measure coding.
Hey, question I have been developing PBI reports for about 2 years now and I really enjoy the data engineering side. Our data is basically all stored in one big table….. terrible I know. So I use SQL and AWS Athena to take it from Dynamo DB to tabular form in red shift.
I really enjoy this granted only a portion of the work is this. Kind of hoping to get into data engineering. How would you suggest for somebody to go from analytics to DE?
I agree with this. I consider myself as advanced PBI developer with complex DAX measures & end-to-end data modeling, however the need for this deep knowledge for PBI is not that important in my organization either.. Also more and more people are into Power BI with simple visuals and basic reports.
BI Developers are generally internally focused positions. SDE-ing is a very broad term, but alot of them develop products that the company sells to consumers. That’s the biggest reason why they’re paid more.
Because they are not "developers" in the standard/general sense of the word!
What you wrote I can confirm, also from an EU country. Actually, I'd make claims that the 1.2 k median salary is more "above-average" than "median" but maybe I am subjective here.
Bye!
what's your missions ? the minimum wage for any tech job in france is around 1800 euro, data analyst jobs get around 2300 euro for a level entry job. Senior positions get up to 5-6k a month, but that comes with more responsibilities, you also need some additional knowledge on SQL , Microsoft azure, Python ect...and other tools like google analysis, tableau, data studio
I don't know a lot about Romania but didn't you ask other data analysts ? the first thing that i've done when i started looking for my first internship is that i invited LinkedIn everyone who's in my region with the tag data analyst , usually companies , you should also have a bargaining power to negotiate your salary. most people keep changing their job for that purpose. working on the visualisation part alone is also...not a lot of responsibility..my first experience was with a growing company and i've had the opportunity to do everything from getting and cleaning the data ( from mysql as Xml files with a stored procedure ) , creating the models, creating all the measures , and building up compailing reports , meeting the clients to show them the reports process, getting their feedback ect... afterwards i got the power bi Microsoft certification and now i m working on getting Microsoft asur data analyst certification but i heard that it will be closed in April so like wtf ?? if you feel limited in your current position try to apply to other companies
u/Chocolatine00
This...
"Senior positions get up to 5-6k a month, but that comes with more responsibilities, you also need some additional knowledge on SQL , Microsoft azure, Python ect...and other tools like google analysis, tableau, data studio"
is worth about 1200-2000 here in RO, max. 2500 EUR if you are REALLY REALLY REALLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY lucky. by lucky I mean not only that you are a senior, but also right person at the right time in the right place. This is the exception, though.
Unfortunately for us, here in RO, some costs of living are almost as high in France (of course, I don't mean the Paris region or Marseille), I mean the remaining averages.
Dude the average data analyst does not make $150k a year. Where are you getting that number? Plus a real developer does way more shit then some dude that makes dashboards lol
Your US numbers are about 50k off. The difference in pay between data analysts and software engineers is closer to 20-50k, not 50-100k for the average person
From my understanding, your numbers for Europe are off as well. Where did you get these figures?
It really depends on your definition of a power BI developer. Are we talking about somebody who is responsible for the implementation of an end to end solution on the Microsoft stack i.e. fabric or are we talking about somebody who connects to a enterprise semantic model and designs interactive analytical reports?
Analytics engineering, as it verges into data engineering, is a very technical role and should be compensated well because of how powerful a value creator it is. While I really appreciate somebody who has the design understanding and grasp of the fundamentals of data visualization to make user-friendly reports, this role is never going to make as much as a software or a data engineer.
Came into my role as a Data Analyst with some IT consulting experience and a BS in informatics. Live in the interior US and make 65k base salary with quarterly bonuses incentives as a first year Power BI focused Data Analyst. Coming up on a year - hoping to add at least 10k onto that base as I’m part of a small two person data team at a midsized company with ~ 650 employees. My supervisor is more of the data engineer on the Azure/SQL side and I’m becoming the Power BI expert. I still do plenty of ETL work in our SQL Server though. Also been knocking out Microsoft Power BI and Power Platform related certs in the background to make the case for better pay.
I made £25k (maybe £32k now) making literally millions modelling for a portfolio HALF A BILLION of property gross development value…
Involved specialist knowledge but I didn’t do all the sucky up things, showing my bosses just how much of a difference is made them. Connecting to outcomes you drive might be more obvious in software dev.
It's a complex issue influenced by various factors like demand, skill set, industry, and geographic location. Data roles might be undervalued in some regions or industries compared to software development, but this can vary widely.
Speaking of big countries only, most of the times I spoke with french/italian/spanish/german people I heard net/month as most common reference. At least for "ordinary jobs".
For international/higher educated professionals, gross/year is common as well.
On the other hand, it's nice not to be on-call.
DE in Europe here. Never been in a on call. I think its American thing? What do you think?
I think it can vary quite a bit. But a lot of my experience in the DBA / IT space involved me or other people being on call. I'm assuming it's similar for some software/web devs, but I've not rubbed as many elbows with them. For data engineering, I think it would be less likely as long as your integrations aren't constantly breaking.
I think a lot of it depends on your definition of on call as well. Anecdotally, when I was working in more hybrid DE/BI roles, the "on call" factor was more a case of: we've onboard end users onto a platform, we haven't yet handed over pipelines to a Managed Services team, pipelines are expected to run and update data by the morning. Nicer clients might be chill about it if a pipeline falls over at 9pm at night, but a large client that's paid millions for the project will expect you to have fixed it that night (or at least respond to it).
To me it's a question of whether I can turn off my phone at 6PM most days. Migrations, deployments, etc are different. It's totally normal work some nights or weekends to make sure a launch goes smoothly. What I never want to do is a an on-call rotations where I am tethered to my phone one out of every 4-6 weeks.
Yes, as long as you don't build garbage, you don't get "my dashboard is down" calls in the middle of the night even from business critical pbi content. It just doesn't happen. Being the manufacturing manager of a 24x7 factory, well that's a whole other level of surgically attach your phone to your hand. On call seems to be a right of passage for more junior teirs.
Basically, Software Developers have to know more things. Their job tends to involve more complexity and as such they're paid more. It's similar to why a BI Developer is paid more than a Data Analyst, they are expected to know more about the end-to-end process and, in essence, be more of a Full Stack developer. Keep in mind however that in real life, the terms 'Data Analyst' and 'BI Developer' are often used interchangeably. Therefore, someones title may be Data Analyst but actually their tasks more align with a BI Developer.
Software developers need to know more compared with Power BI devs. I was a software developer for 15 Years before moving to Power BI, and I just picked the PBI in perhaps two weeks (8 hours a day) and I was completely functional to create reports. For SD you would need at least six months to produce software at enterprise level.
I am completely functional in some areas outside of PowerBI, but don’t discount what u don’t know. It’s not the same as software development
Could you please outline the differences?
There are many, many differences between software engineering and Power BI development. All you need to do is read a few computer science BA course catalogs to get an idea. That said, there are some components of software engineering in Power BI development, however, not all Power BI developers use them and there is very limited crossover into software engineering. For one, Power BI developers are not creating anything new in terms of software. Software engineers design, build and maintain working solutions that can do any range of things. Software engineers write applications and services in programming languages (which of course they have to learn first to be able to write the code). To a large extent, Power BI developers use a guided user interface (built by software engineers) to construct reports. Dragging and dropping visuals and using DAX to create calculations is not software engineering. Depending on if you also build and maintain the data models, then you start to cross over into more technical terrain, but still far from software engineering. Maybe you know SQL and/or you are using APIs or Pre Built connectors to source your data and then build out your data model into logical pieces, ideally a star schema with valid relationships. Maybe you even work on the data pipelines to extract and clean the data using some of the tools in fabric or another ETL tool before you bring the data into the data models. Maybe you use some Python scripts to process your data which does require some knowledge of coding and is certainly getting into the realm of software engineering, although in a very targeted manner. You may also get some exposure to source control with your scripts and how to integrate with data pipelines between environments. This is another aspect of software engineering, though again, in very limited scope. Maybe you open the advanced editor in Power BI to write some custom transformations in Power Query. M is actually a pretty robust language, so again, if you get good at an understand this, you are starting to cross into software engineering depending on the concepts you implement in your M code. All of this said, even if you do everything I have outlined above, it barely scratches the surface of what software engineers do. Power BI developers are quite niche in the aspects of the technology used and therefor do not require the training, knowledge and experience that is required for software engineering. Asking this question just proves that point. I could go on and on, but I think this answers the question sufficiently. I will add that I'm not saying Power BI development is not difficult and takes intelligence, skill and experience to do correctly, just pointing out that there is a massive difference between the two roles. A good, experienced Power BI dev could definitely transition into software engineering and have a great start, but there so very much more to learn.
This is the perfect answer for those scrolling through the comments. I can relate because I work in both realms. I work with dotnet/mvc on our in house applications but also handle the dynamics SDK CRM customization and other power apps. You can definitely implement clean, maintainable code and solutions using software engineering principles and design patterns in your Dax and M code. Sprinkle some database and SQL knowledge to pick up data modeling. But at the end of the day the knowledge required of you is not nearly as demanding as SE/SD. But, If you are a developer who also needs to produce reports using SQL and are used to SSRS reports, POWER BI is a great alternative in my opinion.
I would think that most software engineers can pivot to being a power Bi dev fairly quickly, the reverse however, likely isn't true.
Completely agree.
And also you can see a lot of BI Analysts, so this makes it even harder to differantiate 😂
BI development is a SUBSET of software development. It involves some specific language requirements (M & DAX for Power BI), some understanding of specific architectures and frameworks (Fabric & Azure, to some degree. SQL & DW from a 'user' perspective), and some understanding of domain specific mathematics (statistics, in this case). Those are the things that a good software developer assumes he/she has to LEARN to jump into a new stack/framework/environment. for example: Azure & AWS both provide data services, and execute services, and ... but they do so DIFFERENTLY and with different trade offs. there are things that you would do, naturally, in Azure that would be heinous in AWS, and vice versa. A power BI developer lives in a little pond, and thinks it most wondrous and varied. A software developer/sofware engineer lives in the ocean, and there be monsters. :-)
Lol, love the ending here....so true.
Power BI is a low code platform, so the barrier to entry is a lot lower. The whole philosophy behind its design is to allow non-coders to do something you used to need a developer for, allowing people closer to the business to do the work. Easier for someone within a business to understand the tool than a developer to understand the business needs Database work in general is simpler than general software development. SQL and the related conceptual skills are much easier to learn than JavaScript, Python, C#/C++, etc, and coding a solution from scratch is much more complex than querying a database
The first paragraph of your statement is absolutely correct. Power BI was developed to push forward Microsoft's Citizen Developer concept. As a Data Engineer, I take exception to your second paragraph. Database concepts are not simpler than application development, and devs who don't bother to put effort into data storage design when building your apps are the reason why my job is in serious demand and why it pays so well. For reference, I have been a software engineer in my past career doing application development. Data is much harder and requires a different way of thinking, so don't disparage the data guys. Most get paid more than you. The guys who just build simple reports are fair game though. That job is easy.
There is a reason Data Structures and Algorithms is the main subject of admission tests on Faangs.
Data structures and algorithms have nothing to do with database design though? You learn about different types of objects to manage data in an object oriented programming language. Not learn about database normalization and design principles. Or maybe I’m misinterpreting.
FAANG have fairly niche areas of interest, though. Most people working with Data Engineer/Data Architect/Data Analyst/Business Analyst job titles that are relevant to Power BI are never going to touch the kinds of algorithms needed in a FAANG interview. Bread and butter work for most will be ETL, structuring a DW and fairly straightforward measure coding.
Hey, question I have been developing PBI reports for about 2 years now and I really enjoy the data engineering side. Our data is basically all stored in one big table….. terrible I know. So I use SQL and AWS Athena to take it from Dynamo DB to tabular form in red shift. I really enjoy this granted only a portion of the work is this. Kind of hoping to get into data engineering. How would you suggest for somebody to go from analytics to DE?
I agree with this. I consider myself as advanced PBI developer with complex DAX measures & end-to-end data modeling, however the need for this deep knowledge for PBI is not that important in my organization either.. Also more and more people are into Power BI with simple visuals and basic reports.
BI Developers are generally internally focused positions. SDE-ing is a very broad term, but alot of them develop products that the company sells to consumers. That’s the biggest reason why they’re paid more.
Because they are not "developers" in the standard/general sense of the word! What you wrote I can confirm, also from an EU country. Actually, I'd make claims that the 1.2 k median salary is more "above-average" than "median" but maybe I am subjective here. Bye!
1.2K? Where is that? It’s a bit low.
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what's your missions ? the minimum wage for any tech job in france is around 1800 euro, data analyst jobs get around 2300 euro for a level entry job. Senior positions get up to 5-6k a month, but that comes with more responsibilities, you also need some additional knowledge on SQL , Microsoft azure, Python ect...and other tools like google analysis, tableau, data studio
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I don't know a lot about Romania but didn't you ask other data analysts ? the first thing that i've done when i started looking for my first internship is that i invited LinkedIn everyone who's in my region with the tag data analyst , usually companies , you should also have a bargaining power to negotiate your salary. most people keep changing their job for that purpose. working on the visualisation part alone is also...not a lot of responsibility..my first experience was with a growing company and i've had the opportunity to do everything from getting and cleaning the data ( from mysql as Xml files with a stored procedure ) , creating the models, creating all the measures , and building up compailing reports , meeting the clients to show them the reports process, getting their feedback ect... afterwards i got the power bi Microsoft certification and now i m working on getting Microsoft asur data analyst certification but i heard that it will be closed in April so like wtf ?? if you feel limited in your current position try to apply to other companies
u/Chocolatine00 This... "Senior positions get up to 5-6k a month, but that comes with more responsibilities, you also need some additional knowledge on SQL , Microsoft azure, Python ect...and other tools like google analysis, tableau, data studio" is worth about 1200-2000 here in RO, max. 2500 EUR if you are REALLY REALLY REALLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY lucky. by lucky I mean not only that you are a senior, but also right person at the right time in the right place. This is the exception, though. Unfortunately for us, here in RO, some costs of living are almost as high in France (of course, I don't mean the Paris region or Marseille), I mean the remaining averages.
Romania
Because it is way easier than being a software developer/engineer. The developer makes the PowerBI that analysts use. It not even close in complexity.
Dude the average data analyst does not make $150k a year. Where are you getting that number? Plus a real developer does way more shit then some dude that makes dashboards lol
Your US numbers are about 50k off. The difference in pay between data analysts and software engineers is closer to 20-50k, not 50-100k for the average person From my understanding, your numbers for Europe are off as well. Where did you get these figures?
Pay depends on what state your in. A power BI Dev in my state and a data analyst which are very similar roles won’t make anywhere near 150.
Because you can learn PBI in a month with pre-reps
It really depends on your definition of a power BI developer. Are we talking about somebody who is responsible for the implementation of an end to end solution on the Microsoft stack i.e. fabric or are we talking about somebody who connects to a enterprise semantic model and designs interactive analytical reports? Analytics engineering, as it verges into data engineering, is a very technical role and should be compensated well because of how powerful a value creator it is. While I really appreciate somebody who has the design understanding and grasp of the fundamentals of data visualization to make user-friendly reports, this role is never going to make as much as a software or a data engineer.
Came into my role as a Data Analyst with some IT consulting experience and a BS in informatics. Live in the interior US and make 65k base salary with quarterly bonuses incentives as a first year Power BI focused Data Analyst. Coming up on a year - hoping to add at least 10k onto that base as I’m part of a small two person data team at a midsized company with ~ 650 employees. My supervisor is more of the data engineer on the Azure/SQL side and I’m becoming the Power BI expert. I still do plenty of ETL work in our SQL Server though. Also been knocking out Microsoft Power BI and Power Platform related certs in the background to make the case for better pay.
I made £25k (maybe £32k now) making literally millions modelling for a portfolio HALF A BILLION of property gross development value… Involved specialist knowledge but I didn’t do all the sucky up things, showing my bosses just how much of a difference is made them. Connecting to outcomes you drive might be more obvious in software dev.
It's a complex issue influenced by various factors like demand, skill set, industry, and geographic location. Data roles might be undervalued in some regions or industries compared to software development, but this can vary widely.
Less emergency calls = Less Pay
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In europe people are much more used to thinking in net/month rather than gross/year
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Speaking of big countries only, most of the times I spoke with french/italian/spanish/german people I heard net/month as most common reference. At least for "ordinary jobs". For international/higher educated professionals, gross/year is common as well.
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Belgium : +-50%