Top data engineering writer on Medium & Senior Data Engineer in media; I use my skills as a former journalist to demystify data science/programming concepts so beginners to professionals can target, land and excel in data-driven roles.
[ETR #27] 1 Sheet To Get You Promoted/Hired In 2025
Extract. Transform. Read.A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! It’s the most wonderful time of the year… performance reviews. Depending on your outlook on your job/org, that “wonderful” could be sarcastic. However, if you’ve landed on your manager’s nice list, this can be the time to recap your achievements to maintain credibility and work toward the next rung on the corporate ladder. If you’re on a small team serving demanding stakeholders it’s possible you’ve done way too much to easily recall individual achievements. Enter the brag sheet: A 1-page document recapping your contributions, initiatives and achievements. If you’ve heard the term, it was most likely in the context of college applications, as a prep sheet for your teachers to write nice stuff about you, aka recommendation letters. But you can use the same template to create a record of on-the-job wins you can reference to prep yourself for any formal reviews. I created and shared a “brag sheet” with my manager since he was on leave for most of the summer. In that situation, the doc is mutually beneficial because I maintain visibility for contributions and save a lengthy back-and-forth exchange to “get up to speed.” My sheet was a simple Google Doc with these headings:
Even if you’re not currently working in a data role, I would argue there’s definitely a benefit to recording skills, work and achievements you’re proud of. Your sheet might include headings like:
Instead of formally presenting this doc to a hiring manager, you have an opportunity to use it as an interview aid. It’s much more natural to recite your achievements written in casual language than it is to rattle off your resume’s bullet points. So take time to brag a bit—even if it’s just to yourself. Links:
Thanks for ingesting, -Zach Quinn |
Pipeline To DE
Top data engineering writer on Medium & Senior Data Engineer in media; I use my skills as a former journalist to demystify data science/programming concepts so beginners to professionals can target, land and excel in data-driven roles.
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline Hi past, present or future data professional! If you’ve ever seen the legendary American sitcom Seinfeld, you might be familiar with the fictional holiday the characters create, festivus, “A festival for the rest of us.” As a rejection of conventional winter holidays like Christmas/Haunnukah, a core part of festivus is the “airing of grievances.” While I have yet to attempt this in real-life, I’ve spent the past two years airing my...
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline. Hi past, present or future data professional! This holiday season will be a little less bright thanks to my lack of personal GitHub commits. Like you, I began 2024 full of ideas and motivation that, let’s be honest, was depleted by the end of Q1 when I was cranking out enough code at work that would please even notorious code volume stickler Elon Musk. Despite my lacking output, I managed to hunker down to create useful “bespoke” (a.k.a....
Extract. Transform. Read. A newsletter from Pipeline. Hi past, present or future data professional! When I worked at Disney there was one line (aside from “Have a Magical Day”) that was borderline beaten into us: “We are all custodial employees.” The line meant, of course, to keep areas under your purview neat and presentable (“show ready” in Disney-speak). Using the same logic, I’d like to emphasize that while the various data roles (data analyst, data scientist, data engineer, etc.) have...