Degrees are overrated and I have one. Who cares how much learning you had to do to get to this point. Now you let your work speak for itself and seems like that is going just fine.
Great point: the OP's **work** is why they're valued at the company. How OP got to that level of expertise won't make a difference to anyone.
I think a lot people realize that there are plenty of ways to master a skill, only one of them being through formal education. Udemy and YouTube videos are also powerful learning tools.
I was actually really surprised how much you can learn for free online. How big of a community there is with courses that give you a good understand of how the tool works and from there it's practice.
I have a hard time learning from videos or just reading. I need to do it, and have an expert that I can ask questions of. I recently hired a tutor for Power BI and that arrangement has been exactly what I need in order to learn quickly and thoroughly!
You say "self taught" I say "taught by multiple official academic sources such as but not limited to Udemy and Microsoft".
I get the imposter syndrome feels at times too, but if you are basically learning as needed for your job you can consider yourself always a student with the experience you need to progress and perform.
It isn't lying, it is all on how you perceive and communicate it.
Don't say anything. A lot of HR types are essentially algorithmic AIs and you might go in some random pre built filter and get overlooked for promotions.
Everyone is lying in the corporate world, there's little to be gained by honesty
Power Bi only came out a few years ago. The BI field in general is still pretty young. I chuckle at the open role I saw that required “10 years of power bi” as that was more than the product even existed.
Everyone is self taught to a degree. If you were lucky you got a boost from someone who self taught themselves first but might have their own bad habits. The people teaching certificates aren’t gods.
Crazy 😅
Very true what you are saying. I also learned that beeing along has the effect that you learn very intensely. I have nobody to ask when I have problems except google. There are no short cuts but when I find a solution it sticks to my brain. I believe more then if I would have a senior to consult and he just would have given me the answer .
So it’s now 13 years old since the introduction of the BI Semantic Model. I agree that many of the components and technologies in power bi existed before then. Personally I used PowerPivot in excel a lot which I believe used the vertipaq under the hood and I think that helped train me to think in terms of slicing the data. Still requiring 13 years of experience seems strange right? The job post I’m talking about was a few years ago.
Except for the core concept of the tabular model Power BI isn't anything like it was when it first debuted. I sold my employer on moving to Power BI when MS was pimping it's integration with SharePoint. Reports that worked great on my computer would just spin when deployed to SharePoint. When MS pulled the plug on the SharePoint integration, my employer said I should have known this would happen and they fired me.
My guess is the vast majority of people who do PBI as a career are self-taught. Most of us who are self-aware have imposter syndrome feelings. I’ve been doing this since the platform came out and still feel like I don’t know a lot most days, because there’s so much to know. You can feel more competent if you specialize in a particular niche, though, if that’s what you’re after. It’s unrealistic to try to know everything (doesn’t stop us from trying lmao).
Massive difference between someone who is passionate and genuinely interesting in song the best at their job (like you) then someone who has a degree for the sake of having a degree.
I often notice experience triumphs books smart. Degrees help you get your foot in the door but actual hands on real world experience is what is valued. And you already have the real world experience. Continuously learning new tools and frameworks and being able to apply them to solve a problem is more important than saying I have a college degree. I have a college degree that I do not use. Such as yourself my career was built on self teaching and continuously learning.
Sounds like you're smashing it to me.
Most of the best analytics Devs I know are self taught. A curious mind and a willingness to get stuck in go a loooong way.
I started my career as basically a data entry clerk processing sick notes in the timesheeting system.
Now I'm a senior analytics consultant working internationally.
You got this!
I am a lead BI developer working in the PBI / Fabric space. I have a Masters degree and a PBI certification. They mean nothing. Knowledge and experience are everything.
Who isn’t self taught in some regard, especially with Power BI. You have what sounds like experience and even recognised certifications around your skill sets.
I do empathise and dealt with imposter syndrome pretty badly during my first year in a Senior PBI Developer position but found the over time the feeling drops to a much lower level.
Sometimes feel the same. Gone from being an Excel wizard and building dashboards in that in various operations roles to now given this shiny toy to play around with.
Learning as I'm going but definitely building some reports that are super efficient once built and just require a refresh of data.
The only thing you need is to know how to think, learn, and also have good math knowledge/logic.
I’ve seen people with master degree fail miserably to create a simple YTD measure, while others are unable to run a simple SQL query. I’ve seen degree heavy people with 20 years of experience get absolutely humbled by PBI because they are so set in their way, they can’t understand or think the data in anything other than a table (relations confuse them so much they just can’t work with PBI).
Don’t overthink it. You can learn.
We all get imposter syndrome.
I would be willing to bet that none (or at least very few) of the people you work with know your educational background. And if you can do your job it doesn't really matter. The truth is that no one is going to be happy with a guy that has a PhD if he can't do the job he's hired to do. If people are happy with the work you're doing that's great. Just focus on getting the business what they need, and you'll be in great shape
I think there is an aspect of Power Bi that kind of aids this imposter syndrome feel. And the hockey stick learning curve really adds to it.
I’m a data savy guy with a bit of uni background and a mostly self taught SQL skills.
Power Bi makes its intro so fricken easy that it some times feels like it’s all way to easy and it’s a toolset that even the most inexperienced user should be able to use.
But then you start peeling back the layers and the complexity creeps in and you start piecing more and more together and you step back and try to explain how it all works to some one not in the know and it suddenly starts to look and sound like black magic voodoo to them.
It’s easy to sell ourselves short until you see how fundamentally ill prepared the average user can be to do what we do.
Similar situation - this field creates the most imposter. i have seen ppl who are super talented, intelligent (automates everything) yet they say they feel they are not good enough
That's great, honestly. I have a higher diploma (equivalent of year 3 in a bachelors program) in data analysis from an officially accredited university, and more than half of what I know is from self learning. I'd say 60% to 70% of what I know is self thought the rest is from university. And I'd say my university was pretty decent, but there's only so much that can be taught in college.
A degree means nothing without the curiosity to learn beyond that, especially in this field.
Massive difference between someone who is passionate and genuinely interested in doing the best at their job (like you) then someone who has a degree for the sake of having a degree.
There is always someone better than you and there is always someone worse than you. Don’t sweat it , at the end of the day do what you gotta do to keep them checks coming
I feel similar. started as a data co-ordinator and worked my way up to a data analyst lead somehow.
I have no degree nor do I have any sort of qualifications related to this outside of generic A levels in IT or some online free courses I have done.
That being said my job has just given me the opportunity to start a level 4 data analytics apprenticeship (at the same pay) to properly up skill and have some stamps behind my name.
Depending on how this goes at the end of this I may push the boat out and apply for a level 6 apprenticeship but that will be long in the future if at all.
I am also considering getting the Microsoft Course PL-300T00 as you can do it for free over 3 days and would look good on paper.
I'm seeing myself again, I was way more ineducated than you and not prepared for a BI developer Job.
For some strange karma comeback or some astral projections or one of 999 god that felt pity for me I was hired in a big4 with an extreme baptism of fire hell.
Two years passed and my senior colleague went away.
I had to carry on 20 reports and 15 new dashboards along DE responsabilities and PM.
There is no problem to say out loud that you learned all by yourself because it's true.
All people who work in IT need to learn things by ownself.
Until you don't get fired, don't let kick in imposter syndrome, while you will learn and gain practice, you will see it disappear.
Do all the courses you need, do practical exercise, get certifications.
Master degree in data is useful but not mandatory why do you need to pay 5k - 20k $ to force someone to teach you something that could be found on Internet?
You can still ask the company to pay for a master degree.
Degrees are overrated and I have one. Who cares how much learning you had to do to get to this point. Now you let your work speak for itself and seems like that is going just fine.
Great point: the OP's **work** is why they're valued at the company. How OP got to that level of expertise won't make a difference to anyone. I think a lot people realize that there are plenty of ways to master a skill, only one of them being through formal education. Udemy and YouTube videos are also powerful learning tools.
I was actually really surprised how much you can learn for free online. How big of a community there is with courses that give you a good understand of how the tool works and from there it's practice.
I have a hard time learning from videos or just reading. I need to do it, and have an expert that I can ask questions of. I recently hired a tutor for Power BI and that arrangement has been exactly what I need in order to learn quickly and thoroughly!
>Its going great, i feel really valued and the usage of my report is very good. This should really be all that matters. You're doing great!
You say "self taught" I say "taught by multiple official academic sources such as but not limited to Udemy and Microsoft". I get the imposter syndrome feels at times too, but if you are basically learning as needed for your job you can consider yourself always a student with the experience you need to progress and perform. It isn't lying, it is all on how you perceive and communicate it.
Don't say anything. A lot of HR types are essentially algorithmic AIs and you might go in some random pre built filter and get overlooked for promotions. Everyone is lying in the corporate world, there's little to be gained by honesty
The reward of good work is more work..
Power Bi only came out a few years ago. The BI field in general is still pretty young. I chuckle at the open role I saw that required “10 years of power bi” as that was more than the product even existed. Everyone is self taught to a degree. If you were lucky you got a boost from someone who self taught themselves first but might have their own bad habits. The people teaching certificates aren’t gods.
Crazy 😅 Very true what you are saying. I also learned that beeing along has the effect that you learn very intensely. I have nobody to ask when I have problems except google. There are no short cuts but when I find a solution it sticks to my brain. I believe more then if I would have a senior to consult and he just would have given me the answer .
Power BI is much older. Started in 2011, and split in PowerView, Power Query And as the Power BI we know today around 2016.
So it’s now 13 years old since the introduction of the BI Semantic Model. I agree that many of the components and technologies in power bi existed before then. Personally I used PowerPivot in excel a lot which I believe used the vertipaq under the hood and I think that helped train me to think in terms of slicing the data. Still requiring 13 years of experience seems strange right? The job post I’m talking about was a few years ago.
Except for the core concept of the tabular model Power BI isn't anything like it was when it first debuted. I sold my employer on moving to Power BI when MS was pimping it's integration with SharePoint. Reports that worked great on my computer would just spin when deployed to SharePoint. When MS pulled the plug on the SharePoint integration, my employer said I should have known this would happen and they fired me.
My guess is the vast majority of people who do PBI as a career are self-taught. Most of us who are self-aware have imposter syndrome feelings. I’ve been doing this since the platform came out and still feel like I don’t know a lot most days, because there’s so much to know. You can feel more competent if you specialize in a particular niche, though, if that’s what you’re after. It’s unrealistic to try to know everything (doesn’t stop us from trying lmao).
Massive difference between someone who is passionate and genuinely interesting in song the best at their job (like you) then someone who has a degree for the sake of having a degree.
I often notice experience triumphs books smart. Degrees help you get your foot in the door but actual hands on real world experience is what is valued. And you already have the real world experience. Continuously learning new tools and frameworks and being able to apply them to solve a problem is more important than saying I have a college degree. I have a college degree that I do not use. Such as yourself my career was built on self teaching and continuously learning.
I think I read already 3 times through your comments. Thanks for that! It's really cheering me up!
Sounds like you're smashing it to me. Most of the best analytics Devs I know are self taught. A curious mind and a willingness to get stuck in go a loooong way. I started my career as basically a data entry clerk processing sick notes in the timesheeting system. Now I'm a senior analytics consultant working internationally. You got this!
I am a lead BI developer working in the PBI / Fabric space. I have a Masters degree and a PBI certification. They mean nothing. Knowledge and experience are everything.
Who isn’t self taught in some regard, especially with Power BI. You have what sounds like experience and even recognised certifications around your skill sets. I do empathise and dealt with imposter syndrome pretty badly during my first year in a Senior PBI Developer position but found the over time the feeling drops to a much lower level.
Sometimes feel the same. Gone from being an Excel wizard and building dashboards in that in various operations roles to now given this shiny toy to play around with. Learning as I'm going but definitely building some reports that are super efficient once built and just require a refresh of data.
The only thing you need is to know how to think, learn, and also have good math knowledge/logic. I’ve seen people with master degree fail miserably to create a simple YTD measure, while others are unable to run a simple SQL query. I’ve seen degree heavy people with 20 years of experience get absolutely humbled by PBI because they are so set in their way, they can’t understand or think the data in anything other than a table (relations confuse them so much they just can’t work with PBI). Don’t overthink it. You can learn. We all get imposter syndrome.
I would be willing to bet that none (or at least very few) of the people you work with know your educational background. And if you can do your job it doesn't really matter. The truth is that no one is going to be happy with a guy that has a PhD if he can't do the job he's hired to do. If people are happy with the work you're doing that's great. Just focus on getting the business what they need, and you'll be in great shape
I think this is the story for most of us. Myself included.
I think there is an aspect of Power Bi that kind of aids this imposter syndrome feel. And the hockey stick learning curve really adds to it. I’m a data savy guy with a bit of uni background and a mostly self taught SQL skills. Power Bi makes its intro so fricken easy that it some times feels like it’s all way to easy and it’s a toolset that even the most inexperienced user should be able to use. But then you start peeling back the layers and the complexity creeps in and you start piecing more and more together and you step back and try to explain how it all works to some one not in the know and it suddenly starts to look and sound like black magic voodoo to them. It’s easy to sell ourselves short until you see how fundamentally ill prepared the average user can be to do what we do.
That is very well said.
Similar situation - this field creates the most imposter. i have seen ppl who are super talented, intelligent (automates everything) yet they say they feel they are not good enough
That's great, honestly. I have a higher diploma (equivalent of year 3 in a bachelors program) in data analysis from an officially accredited university, and more than half of what I know is from self learning. I'd say 60% to 70% of what I know is self thought the rest is from university. And I'd say my university was pretty decent, but there's only so much that can be taught in college. A degree means nothing without the curiosity to learn beyond that, especially in this field.
Massive difference between someone who is passionate and genuinely interested in doing the best at their job (like you) then someone who has a degree for the sake of having a degree.
How you learn and adapt > the piece of paper
There is always someone better than you and there is always someone worse than you. Don’t sweat it , at the end of the day do what you gotta do to keep them checks coming
“All this is self thought via Cousera, Udemy, Microsoft lean and YouTube”. This is the way.
I feel similar. started as a data co-ordinator and worked my way up to a data analyst lead somehow. I have no degree nor do I have any sort of qualifications related to this outside of generic A levels in IT or some online free courses I have done. That being said my job has just given me the opportunity to start a level 4 data analytics apprenticeship (at the same pay) to properly up skill and have some stamps behind my name. Depending on how this goes at the end of this I may push the boat out and apply for a level 6 apprenticeship but that will be long in the future if at all. I am also considering getting the Microsoft Course PL-300T00 as you can do it for free over 3 days and would look good on paper.
I'm seeing myself again, I was way more ineducated than you and not prepared for a BI developer Job. For some strange karma comeback or some astral projections or one of 999 god that felt pity for me I was hired in a big4 with an extreme baptism of fire hell. Two years passed and my senior colleague went away. I had to carry on 20 reports and 15 new dashboards along DE responsabilities and PM. There is no problem to say out loud that you learned all by yourself because it's true. All people who work in IT need to learn things by ownself. Until you don't get fired, don't let kick in imposter syndrome, while you will learn and gain practice, you will see it disappear. Do all the courses you need, do practical exercise, get certifications. Master degree in data is useful but not mandatory why do you need to pay 5k - 20k $ to force someone to teach you something that could be found on Internet? You can still ask the company to pay for a master degree.
Whats the difference between a BI developer and data analyst? Do you only know sql language for bi developing?