T-SQL Tuesday 176 – Advice I would give past me when starting my first data platform job

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For this months T-SQL Tuesday contribution I want to cover advice that I would give past me when starting my first data platform job.

I find this post very fitting. Due to the fact that I will be covering something relating to this post during the Data Toboggan conference. Which takes place the Saturday after this post is published and is free to attend online.

Before I go any further, I want to thank Louis Davidson (l/x) who hosts this months T-SQL Tuesday.

When I first saw the invitation title I mistakenly thought it was a repeat of T-SQL Tuesday 149. However, Louis invites us all to talk about what advice we wish us in present time could go back and give past us whilst we were starting our first data platform jobs.

You can read the original invitation by clicking on this link for the T-SQL Tuesday 176 invitation. Alternatively, you can click on the image below.

Advice I would give past me when starting my first data platform job

Anyway, my main piece of advice I would give past me when starting my first data platform job would be to consider sticking with certain technologies for longer.

Allow me to explain. Over the years I have had a tendency to stop working with certain technologies, only to find that years later I needed the skills again.

Classic examples of this are below:

1. Stop working with Power View, only to find that needed the skills again when working with Power BI.
2. Focus elsewhere after working with Hadoop and Spark. Only to find years later that needed to work with Spark compute in various services. Including Azure Databricks, Azure Synapse Analytics and Microsoft Fabric.

I can even go further back in my career before I started working with data full-time. With an example of when I stopped working with Lotus cc:Mail, only for years later to be the main person everybody turned to for Lotus Notes support within a large UK bank.

It resonates with me now more than ever. Since I need to utilize knowledge in various areas whilst working with Microsoft Fabric. Plus, the knowledge that I share in my Microsoft Fabric posts.

Final words

I hope my T-SQL Tuesday contribution this month makes for an interesting read.

Especially since it is probably the only time you will see Microsoft Fabric and Lotus Notes mentioned together.

Of course, if you have any comments or queries relating to this post feel free to reach out to me.