„Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”
– Thomas Huxley

In this post I would like to share with you my vision of an Expert title (at least in IT world) and where I’m on a road to being one.

Definition for me is fairly simple and was already stated in quote from Thomas Huxley at the beginning of this post – „Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.„. Meaning know everything or at least a lot about particular subject be it data warehousing, business intelligence etc. but also have at least basic knowledge of other fields big data, machine learning, design patterns …

Now crucial here is to answer yourself when I will know „everything or at least a lot about a subject„. I personally have a tendency to underestimate (at least in some subjects) my knowledge and level of experience, thus crucial in evaluation of your level is to have someone else opinion (your colleagues, your teammates etc.).

Below status is in 75% based on my opinion and rest 25% of combined feedback that I received from other people that I know and that were able to more or less asses each item.

Clarification before evaluation, my levels of knowledge with brief description.

● Entry – limited knowledge about the subject, mainly theoretical knowledge;

●● Junior – basic knowledge about the subject, more theoretical than practical experience;

●●●  Regular – solid knowledge of core concepts of subject, theoretical knowledge comes hand to hand with practical experience;

●●●●  Senior – inside out knowledge of the subject, solid theoretical knowledge and a lot of hands on experience in various edge cases;

●●●●●  Expert;

With bold are crucial competencies tha I aim to reach Expert level in upcoming months / years

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Where I am now

●● HTML

●● CSS

●● JavaScript

● Networking (Net Protocols)

●● Python

●●●● Oracle DB

●● PostgreSQL DB

●●● Microsoft SQL Server

●● Visualizations

●●● ETL/ELT

●●● Data Warehousing

●●●● SQL

●●● PSQL/ PLSQL / TSQL

● Hadoop

Spark

Kafka

Stream Processing

●●●● Qlik (Qlik View, Qlik Sense, Qlik Administration)

●● Microsoft BI (SSIS, SSAS, SSRS)

● Machine Learning

Chat Bots

Natural Language Processing

Artificial / Augmented Intelligence

●● PowerShell

●● Bash

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[one_half]

Where I want to be

●●● HTML

●●● CSS

●●● JavaScript

●●● Networking (Net Protocols)

●●●●● Python

●●●● Oracle DB

●●● PostgreSQL DB

●●● Microsoft SQL Server

●●●●● Visualizations

●●●●● ETL/ELT

●●●●● Data Warehousing

●●●●● SQL

●●● PSQL/ PLSQL / TSQL

●● Hadoop

●● Spark

● Kafka

●● Stream Processing

●●●● Qlik (Qlik View, Qlik Sense, Qlik Administration)

●● Microsoft BI (SSIS, SSAS, SSRS)

●●●●● Machine Learning

●●● Chat Bots

●●● Natural Language Processing

●●●●● Artificial / Augmented Intelligence

●●● PowerShell

●●● Bash
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[/row]

Based on the above my main focus areas are all around data processing, predictive analytics, insights visualization and all popular nowadays „artificial / augmented intelligence”.

You may ask now, ok Krzysiek all good all shiny but will reaching an Expert level fulfill any of your goals – answer is simple no. For me it is far better to chase the rabbit than to actually catch it, learning process itself is heck a lot of fun and if you will see results than you will get even more motivation to keep moving forward. This drive is something that we all should look for as definitely IT world (but not only, world in general) is changing on such a high pace that even if one will reach „an Expert level” but will stop improving themselves shouldn’t expect to be an Expert always and forever.

I’m curious what is your opinion about that, feel free to share it in comments or just send me an email.

Thanks,
Krzysiek