When it comes to engineering, titles are a-plenty. Software engineer, data engineer, backend software engineer … the list goes on and on. Choosing the right career path and role for your skill set is imperative—because no matter what, a role in data engineering is the foundation for a successful data-driven company.
Toward Data Science says, “Simply put, there can be no data science without data engineering.” The time to jump into the data engineering pool is now and demand has never been greater. According to Interview Query’s Data Science Interview report, the number of data engineering interviews grew by 40% from 2019 to 2020.
Head of Talent Acquisition Lisa Wilms says being an engineer (of any kind) at InfoTrust is dynamic—you’ll never grow stagnant in your role. “I guarantee what you are hired to do will most likely change, evolve, and include more technologies than what we first discussed,” she says. “It is almost impossible to predict how innovation is going to change day-to-day, and that makes it super exciting. Oh, and the benefits and flexible work is pretty awesome, too.”
When choosing an engineering role, Wilms says it’s important to consider how much time you envision yourself working with clients versus the technology itself. “Our consumer data governance team has more interaction with clients, splitting their time about 50/50 with development and technology work,” she says. “A ‘Discovery Team’ engineer will be more 75/25 from development to client interaction and follow-up. An engineer on the product team will be nearly 100 percent development.”
Engineering Roles Available at InfoTrust
The engineering team at InfoTrust took some time to help non-InfoTrusters understand the lay of the land, as well as why they’re glad they do what they do at the data analytics and governance company.
InfoTrust Title: Digital Analytics Engineer
- Comparable industry titles: Software engineer, analytics; software engineer, data; software engineer, ETL; data engineer; backend software engineer; integration engineers; cloud engineers
- Primary responsibilities: Ownership of the entire data collection and processing lifecycle (except for data science); setting up the data layer on the front end to building data pipelines in airflow; developing microservices in a variety of languages
- Job description for a fifth grader: This role works in tracking, data collection, and processing (but not the creepy stuff you hear about on the news). Additionally, this role collects and processes data about user behavior as a whole, and not a specific individual.
- Example projects: Data Pipeline with Apache Airflow (Python, BigQuery, Docker, Kubernetes); Task Processing System (GCP Cloud Run, Node.js, MySQL, GCP Pub/Sub)
InfoTrust Digital Analytics Engineer Aran Murphy says, “I think sometimes when people see ‘digital analytics engineer,’ they wonder, what does that mean? I know I did. The responsibilities of someone with this title can vary quite a bit depending on the team. On the Discovery Team, this will typically mean building integrations and data pipelines, as well as a variety of front and back-end projects.
As far as my current role, and InfoTrust as a whole, I have had the freedom to learn and grow a lot quicker than I could have imagined. On top of that, I feel as though I can see the effects of the decisions that I make—and everyone’s opinion is well respected. I would definitely recommend an engineering role at InfoTrust if you want to work on projects that go beyond typical full-stack development work, are interested in working with data, and value a culture that puts its employees first.”
InfoTrust Title: Analytics engineer (data governance)
- Comparable industry titles: Web/Digital analytics engineer; tag implementation specialist; automation engineer; implementation engineers;
- Primary responsibilities: Develop solutions for clients looking to optimize their digital analytics and advertising; implement customized analytics and advertising tracking code for enterprise clients; ensure accurate and compliant data collection across all brands; help clients implement consent and privacy technologies
- Job description for a fifth grader: This role writes invisible website code that helps businesses better understand their customers
- Example projects: Roll out a customized Facebook implementation for a 50+ market brand; work with Google to test and implement new beta platform features only available to partners; set up automated data collection monitoring for clients to ensure complete and compliant tracking
Sometimes having a specific title can help you advance in your career and brings you pride in your work. Rachel Joss, Analytics Engineer (Data Governance), says that data drives business and in the technology space there is always a need for engineers to innovate on new solutions and figure out the tough problems that make business better. “When you combine data and engineering, the possibilities are truly endless. There is a common misconception about analytics engineering that it’s just copy and pasting code. That could not be further from the truth, especially in this age of first-party data, cloud and server-side tracking, privacy, and multi-platform reporting.”
She adds, “Before I ever knew of InfoTrust, I had no idea you could be an engineer/developer in the analytics space. I had an interest in data and came from a development background, so when I found the position, I was really excited. Coming into InfoTrust three years ago, I started on the automation team, but then opportunities opened up for me to experience more cloud engineering, and now I am working more with data governance and privacy. There are so many different types of engineering roles here, it’s truly awesome!”
InfoTrust title: Data governance engineer and consultant
- Comparable industry titles: Software automation engineer; automation engineers; implementation engineer; tag management specialist/engineer
- Primary responsibilities: Ensures that first-and third-party data collection implementations are working as intended while leveraging tools like Tag Inspector to correct issues as they arise; focus on new ways to improve procedures and pipelines for storing privacy-centric datasets (some days use a quick Google Apps Script in Sheets and others build a full GCP solution with custom NodeJS packages)
- Job description for a fifth grader: This role gets to take annoying things that no one wants to do and makes it happen automatically with computers.
- Example projects:
- Tag Inspector Reporting Automation – Interacting with the Tag Inspector API to inspect scans, create exports, store in GCP buckets, migrate to BigQuery, and dump the results of a query into Google Sheets for client consumption.
- Tag Performance Reports – Automated process interacting with the Tag Inspector API to run a sample of “study” scans to get a statistically significant dataset to compare page load metrics when tags are allowed and when they are blocked. This quantifies the impact that pages are having on a site.
- Time Logging Chrome Extension – Eliminate manual process and instead send Google Calendar events directly to time-logging platform, Teamwork, by scraping the event data on the page and passing through their API.
Data governance engineer and consultant Adam Warniment says that the phrase, “data governance,” is on fire right now and the term can have an impact on his career. “While it does carry some ambiguity, it also presents itself as someone who can carry a wide range of hats,” he says. Warniment also adds that he enjoys the freedom of ingenuity in his role: “If I come up with an idea, I can run with it and use it to help other team members. Someone should consider an engineering role at InfoTrust because they will be surrounded by incredibly intelligent people. You’ll see professional athletes flock to teams that have the best players to help them elevate their game—I look at InfoTrust in a similar lens. We’re surrounded by team members that consistently elevate our individual game.”
InfoTrust title: Analytics engineer
- Industry title equivalency: Javascript web developer; software engineer; integration engineer; cloud engineer
- Primary responsibilities: Work with clients to get some of their more complex data cleaned up and into a solution they can learn from (aka be a hardcore developer); write scripts to get a client’s data to the destination needed
- Job description for a fifth grader: A company can see every time you use their website. They say, “Oh! Jack was on our website!” But then how do they know the difference between you visiting and Katie visiting the website? This role writes a bunch of secret code to help make it easier for the company to make sense of what you did on their website vs what Katie did.
- Example projects: Splitting data based on certain paraments so a client can deliver the proper data to each of their teams; building a NodeJS web app to allow for automation of an internal process (allowing team members to mine data on their own with a web app); building a UI around API tools
Analytics Engineer Mike Lehmann says that when someone just sees “software engineer,” they may think of that person as someone sitting in a cube just writing code. “The title at InfoTrust shows that I have other skills and like to explore various facets of development like data and analytics. I don’t just write code everyday. I am immersed in the process from planning to client interactions, execution, and final testing.”
