T-SQL Tuesday #193 - A Note to Your Past, and a Warning from Your Future

The topic for this month’s T-SQL Tuesday #193 hosted by Mike Walsh (Blog) is “A Note to Your Past, and a Warning from Your Future”. Here are my thoughts on the timeline of a data professional.

What to Worry About?

Our discipline is one of introverts, over-thinkers, and dealing with layers of abstraction. Sometimes that diffuses out of our work and into our personal affairs. We start to fret about what is or could have been. What follows are my answers for the past and the future, injected with a bit of ruminating reflection and some gallows humor.

A Letter To The Past

From: Current Self // To: Past Self

Hey there past-self from 10 years ago. A lot of things have changed – a lot of things have not. I know you have worries about your future and are fervently trying to figure things out. Allow me to assuage your speculative trepidations with a little insight from years ahead.

You’re an Imposter (And That’s Okay)

You always knew people were the hardest problem to solve. You thought there was a formula to optimize human interaction. There isn’t.

So you go through work feeling like an imposter. Because you are aware of what you know—and more aware of what you don’t—you feel like a fraud. Your introversion keeps that bubbling inside where it loops into circular bias. Know that very few people have it figured out. Most are either acting purely on primal instinct or they are wearing a “mask” in a theatre. Don’t let this frustration manifest as behavior unlikely to win friends and influence people.

Most people are “faking it until they make it.” They are playing roles that are like wearing different hats: the analyst hat, the manager hat, the presenter hat. Understand that there’s nothing wrong with this. There is no runbook for being human and excelling at work. The best you can do is emulate the people who have or do what you want.

The World Doesn’t Work Like the Schema

Have you ever heard of the phrase: “Do you want to win – or do you want to be right”? As you grow you must learn to chose your battles. As you gather more responsibility, the stakes are raised.

When you’re young, you should take risks. You have little to lose and a lot to gain even from failure. As time marches on, changing direction takes longer and offers more resistance. People are going to be in positions you think they are not apt to be in. Worry about yourself—not others. I can assure you they think of you much less than you think of them.

A Letter From The Future

From: Future Self // To: Present Self

There are no brakes on this train. You cannot get off. Change is part of the journey.

The Generative AI Mirage

Right now, you’re dealing with the advent of generative AI. On the face of it, it is dazzling. Some see a utopia where work is optional; others see a cautionary tale of dystopia where unchecked autonomy leads to detached consequences.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Like every tech revolution before it, AI had its bubble and its bust. In the end, it made things a little better by automating simple, deterministic tasks. Reporting, BI, and analytics were initially muddled by bad data and outcomes prompted in advance of reality, but humans are still at the helm deciding what they want. Consequences still matter.

The Data Professional’s Evolution

Enough about the macro – let’s delve into the specifics of this for a data professional. Speaking strictly about SQL Server, it’s not enough to be an expert with this database. Nor is it enough to be savvy with Postgres or other RDBMS. SQL is still alive and well; however, it isn’t a livelihood anymore.

What makes a good software engineer?

Being curious about how things work
A/B testing – in software we are lucky to be able to test results and reproduce scenarios
Detail oriented
Problem solving capabilities – you have to be good at it and actually like it. You must wrestle with the data.

Old World Skills	New World Reality
SQL Server / DBA	Data Engineering
BI / Analytics	Data Science
Manual Tuning	ML Model Understanding
T-SQL Scripts	Python-based Orchestration

That said, please consider in the precious few moments you are awake to add to your skillset. Don’t put off learning new skills. You must create the time and forge through with effort. If we have to name-names, I’d say:

Learn Python – it’s the language of data
Data engineering has replaced DBA work
Data science has replaced BI and current analytics
ML / AI – understand the models and the details behind the “thinking machine”

Conclusion

The journey continues. Be curious, stay skeptical of the hype, and remember: Be kind to our AI overlords. Always say “please” and “thank you” in your prompts—it might save you when the machines take over!