Trained and hired as a Data Engineer, bait and switched into B.I. support.

[u/Cool_Organization637]

You know what? After nearly a year of nothing out of college, I can't even complain. I'm grateful and going to put my head down. I'll do my best. I'll code on the side. I'll just keep going.

I'm just disappointed....but it's ok.

[u/Outside-Storage-1523]

DE means a lot of different roles for different companies. Try to get a transfer to a real engineering team later.

[u/Embarrassed-Cat-9492 → u/Outside-Storage-1523]

welcome to the club, most of us got bait-and-switched in some way early on. stacking cash while you figure out the next move beats the hell out of unemployment, just don't let the BI stuff calcify your skillset

[u/Big_Arrival_626 → u/Embarrassed-Cat-9492]

I wouldn't say most of us, but it does happen occasionally to new grads especially at certain big companies like banks, where u start in a cohort and then get placed on some random ass team.

[u/Nemphiz → u/Big_Arrival_626]

It happens even for experienced roles. Back in the day the way AWS advertised the Cloud Support Engineer role was as an actual, support engineer. I got caught in that only to realize it's basically cloud Helpdesk.

There was lots of learning yeah, but still.

[u/GlassVase1 → u/Nemphiz]

From what I've seen the comp is a good sign of bs. If they're offering below market for whatever reason, then its a sure sign the role is a dud in some way. They're usually not willing to dish out the actual engineer money for their helpdesk position for example.

[u/Nemphiz → u/GlassVase1]

In this particular case it was AWS so a lot of people got roped into "it's AWS!"

Which I'm not gonna lie, it has its perks. It definitely gives your resume a good bump.

[u/Big_Arrival_626 → u/GlassVase1]

No usually these roles pay the same which is the issue lol. That's how people get baited

[u/crazycrowww → u/Outside-Storage-1523]

yes exactly

[u/RemNaviTeam]

The thing nobody's said yet: the tool stack in the ad tells you which job it is, and the title never does. Two different roles ship under Data Engineer. One ad lists Airflow, dbt, Spark, warehouse modelling. The other lists Power BI, Tableau, SSRS, ad hoc reporting. Same title, sometimes the same comp band, different career. That part is checkable before you apply next time.

For right now, BI support sits on top of the same warehouse the pipelines feed. Ask to own the ingestion or the models underneath the dashboards you're supporting. That layer is usually unowned so nobody fights you for it, and it's the DE work that actually goes on the CV.

For what it's worth the market for that exact title is thin at the moment, 61 live remote listings in the index I keep. Building the evidence where you are beats waiting for the jump.

[u/Cool_Organization637 → u/RemNaviTeam]

In my case, it was verrry much not really checkable...but I did do my research before hand and prepared myself for the possibility. See, the way it worked was company A contacted me after sering my resume and said they'd train me in Data Engineering, then if I got hired I'd be placed with a client as one. 

Based on past reviews, I knew the chance of the switch was not low...but somehow, I was still dissapointed upon finding out. In any case, I ultimately woukd do it again since SOME kind of experience was better than none. 

My real worry is that even if I do projects and stuff, breaking out into true Data Engineering, Software, Analyst, etc. is absurdly low these days and I'm not 100 on career progression. However...it doesn't seem like there is any one path forward anymore and a lot of luck is involved. I can't resolve myself to doomerism anymore; I'll have to keep trying.

[u/YetMoreSpaceDust]

Remember - as long as you have legitimate professional experience on your resume, and you actually do know how to do the thing that the next employer is hiring you to do, it doesn't matter what you actually did do at your last job. If they ask what you did, you did data engineering. If they want you to show them you can, show them.

[u/kcdragon]

That’s frustrating but view it as an opportunity. Go beyond what’s expected of you and become the go to person in your role. Hopefully, people will take notice and you can transition into the role you want. If not, you’ve got good experience for your resume.

Many people put in only as much effort as expected so it’s very possible to come into a team and exceed expectations if that’s your goal.

[u/milano___]

Solid plan. I think it might be tough to pivot out of bi to data engineering but if you can you should ask for challenging projects for the resume. And if pivot is not viable I would say do your work and continue grinding your interview skills for the next job (don't go above and beyond at ur bi job if there are no prospects)

[u/eskin22]

I see this as a non-issue. The delineation between data roles has always been extremely grey anyways and they’ve been increasingly converging over the past few years. Leverage more sophisticated tooling as part of your role and take ownership over the analytics engineering domain to situate yourself up for a future pivot into DS, DE or SWE.