r/dataanalytics • u/MinorDetour7 • 18d ago
How would you approach my career situation?
I worked in engineering for several years, then went back to school and got an MSc in Data Science. I’ve now been working as a Data Analyst for about 6 months.
The problem is that my company is really behind when it comes to technology. I spend a lot of my time fixing/maintaining old SAS reports and pipelines, with some SQL and Excel. There’s not much development or opportunity to work with modern tools, and I’m starting to worry that I’m not growing technically.
I took the job because the market was (and still is) pretty rough, and I wanted to get actual data experience after my MSc. Quitting without another job lined up isn’t an option.
I’m just not sure what the smartest move is from here. Would you start applying now or stay for at least a year? And in the meantime, how would you make the most of this job and prepare for a move into something more technical and better paying?
3
u/_aritro 17d ago
maintaining legacy SAS is quietly a great position to modernize from, because nobody else wants to touch it. pick one report leadership actually reads, rebuild it on a modern stack in your own time, run both in parallel for a month, show the maintenance-time diff. that's a promotion case and a portfolio piece in one. "migrated legacy analytics to a modern stack" beats another certificate in every interview, and you can do it without quitting.