What Is an Analytics Engineer and How Do I Become One?

To kick things off, let’s take a look at a fairly new role in the space: the Analytics Engineer.

You might be asking yourself - what the heck is an analytics engineer? Well, that’s a good question, and our first recommended resource is actually a guide to this newly formed role.

According to dbt, an analytics engineer provides clean data sets to end users, modeling data in a way that empowers end users to answer their own questions. While a data analyst spends their time analyzing data, an analytics engineer spends their time transforming, testing, deploying and documenting data.

1) The Analytics Engineering Guide from dbt

If you’re starting from square one, this guide gives you an excellent overview of the why and how analytics engineering came to be. You’ll also gain a better understanding of where this role fits into a data team, and even have access to an aggregated job board.

2) Data + Analytics Engineering Academy at CoRise

While some of us do well with self guided learning, there are definitely those who prefer a more structured learning plan or class - and there are many great options online.

CoRise offers online learning focused in the data space, with flexible part time courses and learning tracks. In this track, you’ll go through three courses with projects to hone in on your newly developed skills. Best part - you can take multiple courses and tracks at once!

3) Analytics Engineering course from Analytics Engineers Club

If you’re looking to take the benefits of structured learning and incorporate them into a self paced program - this course might be the one for you. The curriculum is laid out for you, and it’s recommended you take 10 weeks to run through everything. As an added benefit, you’ll get lifetime access to the lessons, so you can always come back when you need to brush up your skills.

4) Analytics Engineer Bootcamp from Udemy

If you’ve done any sort of online learning before, you’re probably already familiar with Udemy. It’s a platform that allows you to learn new skills through recorded on-demand lectures, and this bootcamp offers 136 of them to gain a good understanding of what you’ll need to know to break into the field.

Tip: It's recommended to have a basic understanding of SQL before taking this bootcamp.

5) Data Analytics Engineering MS from George Mason University

We couldn’t put together a list of learning resources without a fully fledged higher education option. George Mason University (located just outside of Washington, DC) offers an in-person and online M.S. in Data Analytics Engineering. This program will actually help prepare you for careers not just in analytics engineering, but in data science and analysis as well.

In the meantime, please consider subscribing to our guided tour through data roles led by people doing the jobs. The series is called "Captain's Compass" and you can learn more about it and sign up for alerts by following this link.