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Tristan Handy's avatar

Didn't you write a post about the work done by data analysts and compare it to honeydew? Ah yes, found it:

https://benn.substack.com/p/third-rail

To me, this dynamic is the single most determinative fact on this topic. If I had some magical way to quantify the output of data analysts and analytics engineers, my gut instinct is that it would line up directly with your charts in that post. Which is to say: the median data analyst provides less value but the max data analyst provides dramatically _more value_ than an analytics engineer. The distributions look very different.

I know some of those top-end-of-the-distribution analysts and I could imagine easily making the argument that they should get paid $500k+ if they're working in a domain area that rewards it. And the thing that is special about those folks is, as you say, not their "technical" skills...it's their domain knowledge and "soft skills".

Sometimes traditional career-ladder-focused compensation practices don't do a good job of accurately valuing impact that is distributed in this way.

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Ernest Prabhakar's avatar

Preach it, brother! That’s why I’m pushing the term “data therapist” :-) The hardest work of all is helping people productively articulate what they truly want…

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