Data Analyst: Career Guide
6 min read · IT Careers
What Does a Data Analyst Do?
Data analysts turn raw data into decisions: pulling numbers with SQL, cleaning and shaping them, and presenting findings through dashboards or reports that a business team acts on. The job is less about building models and more about answering specific business questions clearly and on time.
Skills & Qualifications
SQL is non-negotiable — most interviews include a live SQL test. Beyond that, spreadsheet fluency (Excel or Google Sheets, including pivot tables), one BI tool (Power BI or Tableau are the most requested), and basic statistics cover most job descriptions. A degree in any quantitative field works; there's no single required major.
Typical Career Path
Junior Data Analyst → Data Analyst → Senior/Lead Analyst is the standard track, often branching after 3-4 years into Analytics Manager, Data Scientist (with added statistics/ML), or Business Intelligence Engineer roles.
How to Break In
Build 2-3 portfolio projects using public datasets that end in a dashboard, not just a notebook — hiring managers want to see you can communicate a finding, not just compute one. Off-campus and referral-based hiring is common at this level since the role exists in almost every industry, not just tech companies.