How Coaching & Hands-On Learning Helped Faiz Secure His First Data Engineering Role
Faiz Puad started his career as a Data Analyst, working with BI tools, Python, Excel, and SQL. While he was comfortable with data, he had no prior experience with Data Engineering tools. Knowing he wanted to transition into Data Engineering, he joined the 6-month Coaching program with lifetime access to the Academy to gain the skills and confidence needed to land his dream job.
The Coaching Experience
Faiz found the Coaching program to be highly structured yet flexible, allowing him to tailor his learning to his skill level and career goals.
"The personalized learning path was a game-changer for me. The structured plan, hands-on projects, and direct industry guidance gave me exactly what I needed to upskill and transition into Data Engineering."
Each student in the program gets a customized roadmap, focusing on what’s most relevant to their background and local job market. In Faiz’s case, he worked on OLTP and OLAP database design and data pipeline projects, which gave him real-world experience he could showcase to employers.
Beyond technical skills, he also received career coaching, including resume improvement, GitHub portfolio setup, blog writing, and job interview strategies—all led by experienced professionals.
Key Benefits
One of the biggest advantages of the program was gaining real-world knowledge from experienced Data Engineers. Faiz learned not just the technical skills but also industry best practices, helping him design scalable and efficient solutions. Through Coaching sessions, he also identified gaps in his knowledge that he hadn’t considered before, such as throttling in streaming pipelines and data governance principles—both critical aspects of real-world data engineering.
Having his work reviewed by professionals gave him confidence in his skills. When he designed OLTP/OLAP database models, getting expert feedback ensured that he was following best practices.
"Having my OLTP/OLAP designs reviewed by industry experts really gave me confidence. I knew I was building things the right way."
Challenges & Lessons Learned
The journey wasn’t without challenges. One of the biggest realizations Faiz had was that Coaching is not a step-by-step bootcamp where everything is spoon-fed. Instead, he had to take ownership of his learning, using the guidance provided to drive his own progress. This shift in mindset took some time, but ultimately, it made him a stronger, more independent problem-solver.
Most importantly, Faiz learned that problem-solving is an essential part of becoming a Data Engineer. Unlike traditional courses that provide every answer, this Coaching program encouraged him to research, troubleshoot, and find solutions independently—an invaluable skill in the real world.
Learning Platform Experience
Alongside Coaching, Faiz had access to the Learn Data Engineering Academy, which provided structured courses in short, digestible video modules. The curriculum covered everything from Python and security concepts to full OLTP/OLAP projects and cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP.
The way complex topics were broken down made learning easier. For example, data modeling—a topic many struggle with—was simplified into clear, step-by-step explanations. The platform also provided lifetime access, meaning he could revisit lessons whenever needed, making it a valuable long-term resource.
Success Right Down the Line
Looking back, Faiz says the program was exactly what he needed to make the career switch.
"This program exceeded my expectations. The combination of real-world coaching, hands-on projects, and career guidance was invaluable. If you're self-motivated and ready to put in the effort, I highly recommend it!"
At the end of the program, Faiz successfully landed his first Data Engineering job! 🚀
Start your own journey
We hope you got inspired by Faiz’s journey. Now the big question for you is: are you ready to start your very own Data Engineering success story? Then join my Data Engineer Coaching today!
From Novice to Pro: How Understanding Data Engineering Landed Stefan a Job Tomorrow!
Stefan Wellmann started his career as a market research consultant in a market research company. There, he conducted surveys, was responsible for programming questionnaires and did data analysis with the main focus on the front end.
After leveling up his skills and knowledge in the Learn Data Engineering Academy, he was ready for a successful job change and now works as a data engineer in a German IT consulting company.
The struggle finding good training
In the beginning of his data engineering journey, he found it difficult to find comprehensive data engineer training and courses. On platforms like Udemy and Coursera, he struggled with understanding the content. It wasn’t very clear how long the video material is and if he could be a data engineer after. It took him a while to find courses like the ones in the Academy where he got code examples and understandable training videos.
“I was watching videos on YouTube and saw that Andreas speaks German. I thought it could be helpful in detail and checked out his Learn Data Engineering Academy. A data engineer needs to know a lot of tools to find the best way to ingest, process and view data. The Academy was the perfect place as the range of courses was very good and included a lot of different software such as Snowflake - so, very good value for money.”
Leveling up step by step
Stefan tries to watch every course offered and plans to specialize in Microsoft Azure since his new job will involve a lot of work with it. He especially appreciated the step-by-step programming and live preview videos within the Academy.
Overall, Stefan feels that the Learn Data Engineering Academy has helped him understand data engineering better and has met his expectations. Additionally, he holds a favorable opinion of Andreas, the instructor, and finds him to be a nice and likable guy. Stefan plans to integrate what he has learned into his new job as a data engineer.
Start your own journey
We hope you got inspired by Stefan’s journey. Now the big question for you is: are you ready to start your very own Data Engineering success story? Then join our Learn Data Engineering Academy today!
From Medical Doctor to Data Engineering Pro: A Tale of Embracing the World of Data
Despite starting his career as a Medical Doctor in Argentina, Santiago Caraballo has proven himself to be a passionate and enthusiastic technologist. He has a keen interest in exploring innovative solutions, always eager to stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in the field. Now, Santiago works as a Data Engineer in an IT consulting company where he excels in conceptual data design, BigQuery, and Dataflow.
When he delved into data engineering, it seemed to him a daunting task keeping up with the latest technology advancements and finding the right educational material to focus on.
“With new releases and tools constantly emerging, it can feel like a challenge to keep up with everything. Cloud technology, in particular, is evolving at an unprecedented pace, making it easy to feel overwhelmed and uncertain about where to focus your attention.”
Investment in professional development
Because of that, Santiago appreciated the Learn Data Engineering Academy for its carefully structured curriculum. He also values the opportunity to participate in office hours with Andreas, where he can discuss real-life scenarios and emerging technologies with someone as knowledgeable and experienced as Andreas. He considers this personalized attention and support to be truly invaluable and believes that it has made his subscription to the academy feel like an incredible investment in his professional development. Beyond that, the course material was very convincing to him.
“I have found the course material to be incredibly valuable - it is well curated and presented in a way that is easy to understand. As someone who comes from a different field, I sometimes struggle to grasp theoretical concepts despite having experience with practical applications. That being said, I even have found the theoretical courses to be very enjoyable and informative. Especially the section on data modeling has been a highlight for me, as Andreas provides key insights on how to think beyond the surface-level requirements and build data models that truly meet the needs of the organization.”
Equipped for the real life through practical examples
In the end, the courses helped Santiago to consolidate his knowledge and feel more confident in defending his ideas to clients. He found them particularly helpful in understanding how to design and implement pipeline architectures that meet business requirements. The practical examples and real-world scenarios covered in the training material made him better equipped to answer client questions and make informed decisions about how to best approach each unique situation.
Overall, Santiago is thrilled with the progress he has made through the training and highly recommends it to anyone looking to take their data engineering skills to the next level. The comprehensive curriculum, personalized coaching, and supportive community have truly exceeded his expectations.
Start your own journey
We hope you got inspired by Santiago's journey. Now the big question for you is: are you ready to start your very own Data Engineering success story? Then join our Learn Data Engineering Academy today!
From Data Science to Data Engineering - a Successful Journey
Ovo Okpubuluku is a Data Engineer living in the Calgary Area in Alberta, Canada. Before pivoting to the tech industry in 2020, he had worked in Oil and Gas as an Engineering Technologist and in Banking as a branch operations, customer service and transaction processing officer. He began his journey into data science in December 2019 and shifted into data engineering in early 2022.
Facing hurdles
When he started his data engineering journey, it was problematic for him to find profound Data Engineer training and courses. There was an uptick in data engineering job openings, but from his experience not many people were talking about how to start a career in this field. Although data engineering has the same, if not a higher amount of job openings and talent needs in the job market, for him it seemed to be not as hyped as data science.
“Frankly, it took me a while to come to the conclusion that Data Engineering was for me. I was stuck in my Data Sciencing ways for quite a bit. Also, my introduction to Data Engineering was not a very pleasant experience. This was due to the set of courses I took at first in a prior Data Science program and how they were delivered, as well as the complexity and huge learning curve of the Hadoop Ecosystem all coming from the Big Data era. Because of that experience, I became very apprehensive about learning Data Engineering tools, and steered away from that area.”
However, with the advent of the cloud, and learning more about cloud resources, Ovo quickly saw that people can become Data Engineers without having to learn and use the Big Data technologies. The cloud seemed to even up the playing ground.
The perfect fit
Back then in 2021, Ovo also came across Andreas Kretz’s content. Listening to Andreas’s YouTube videos, and reading through his LinkedIn posts or blog posts on Medium helped Ovo to get to the point of believing that he should learn data engineering skills. He also read the Data Engineering Cookbook, which was a very encouraging proposition for him to take on the challenge of skilling up in data engineering. And Andreas’s Learn Data Engineering Academy seemed to be the perfect place for Ovo. From all the training and courses out there, the Academy was the only one that was a good fit for Ovo’s schedule and skill level at the time.
“Signing up for the academy was a natural choice at that point. This is because I have grown to trust Andreas’s perspectives and experience in the field. Also, the Academy became affordable when I landed a job, and so I signed up for a couple of years to quickly learn the content. The other reason I like the Academy is that it is 100% flexible, not cohort based with live classes. This fits my schedule perfectly, and allows me to set a cadence to learn when it is most convenient. I also love the hands on projects section. That was a huge deciding factor in getting into the Academy. It turned out that my Data Science role was not really focused on Data Science tasks, and when I took on more Data Engineering and Cloud platform projects, I changed my title to Data Engineer, and decided to go all in with the Academy.”
Courses and projects helped landing a Data Engineering job
Ovo studied all the courses available at the time. He found that the Academy helped him with fundamental understanding of data engineering design and theory, as well as the basic knowledge of how to apply the various tools commonly used in the field. The Academy also provided a foundation to build on in even more complex project settings. Ovo particularly likes that he gets lifetime access to the content, and can refer to it with confidence whenever he has to learn any new technology from the ground up.
Ovo's expectations of the Academy were exceeded as he set out to study all the fundamental courses and get at least 2 projects into his portfolio by March 2023. After only two months of taking courses, Ovo began working on a data pipeline at work. This encouraged him to toss in some job applications between June and July of 2022, just to "test the waters". He was surprised when he got several interviews, three of which progressed to the final stages. He chose the best offer for a Data Engineer role in a GCP consulting company in Toronto, which he started in August 2022.
Start your own journey
We hope you got inspired by Ovo’s journey. Now the big question for you is: are you ready to start your very own Data Engineering success story? Then join our Learn Data Engineering Academy today!
Empowering Data Engineers:
How Chris Found the Perfect Resource to Accelerate His Career Growth
Chris Wight is an experienced data engineer who started his career in Information Technology during the mid-90s. With a degree in Philosophy, he began working in a tech shop, repairing computers and troubleshooting end-user problems. Chris then got a couple of certifications and moved up the technical ladder, eventually landing a job at a major tech company in Silicon Valley, California. He specialized in systems and database administration, later moving into data integration and data warehousing.
In 2010, Chris accepted a job as a defense contractor in Tokyo, Japan, where he worked on data analytics and database architecture until 2020. He then returned to the western US, where he currently works with cloud data platforms at a major defense contractor.
Discovering a Valuable Ressource
During his time as a data engineer, Chris found that there were not many resources available for data engineering training and courses online. However, he stumbled upon the O’Reilly book, Fundamentals of Data Engineering, by Joe Reis and Matt Housley. Later on, he discovered Andreas Kretz’ Data Engineering Academy through his YouTube channel and was soon convinced of the teaching content:
"The approach to learning data engineering fits very well with where I am in my career and my aspirations for the future. I watched many of the free videos on Andreas YouTube channel, and was intrigued by the topics. The videos were very short but they left me with questions and I wanted to know more. I checked out the Data Engineering Academy curriculum and it seemed like exactly what I needed. The career roadmap and tech tree were impressive, providing various possible approaches to get into the industry. I recognized many of the technologies mentioned were some things I could get involved with at my work, and that gave me more ideas on how to move into the direction of Data Engineering as a full-time career.”
Chris is currently focusing on the Platform & Pipeline Design Fundamentals course, with particular interest in the hands-on example projects as he plans to complete all of them. Since Chris’s current job revolves around Azure data platforms, he feels that it will be the easiest and most immediately useful technology for him to learn. Nevertheless, he is interested in all the technologies covered by the Academy and looks forward to learning more.
Comprehensive Learning Journey
Chris has found the courses at the Data Engineering Academy to be very positive overall. He appreciates the career and technology roadmaps in PDF form, and he spends more time on each course, taking notes and screenshots to review later. He has noticed a considerable difference in his understanding and confidence with the topics covered so far.
"The Academy is casual, comprehensive, and self-paced. The courses are well-structured, very well thought out, and thorough. The Discord server is helpful. I can expect to get an answer within twenty-four hours of my question (understandably, I’m in the US West, usually learning after midnight in Germany). Andreas is a good instructor, easy to listen to, easy to understand. Sometimes he is funny, perhaps unintentionally, and I appreciate that. There seems to be a lot of growth and development in the Academy, which is encouraging for future content.”
Overall, Chris feels that he has made positive progress so far, and his expectations of the Academy have been met. Despite a busy winter and spring, he is looking forward to catching up and absorbing all the new content. The Learn Data Engineering Academy has been an excellent resource for Chris, and he would recommend it to anyone looking to start or advance their career in data engineering.
Start your own journey
We hope you got inspired by Ovo’s journey. Now the big question for you is: are you ready to start your very own Data Engineering success story? Then join our Learn Data Engineering Academy today!
From Seismic Data to Data Engineering:
How Adnen Successfully Managed His Professional Transformation
Adnen Messaoudi, a senior seismic observer from Tunisia, is embarking on a remarkable career transformation from the world of seismic data collection to data engineering. With a strong background in the oil industry, specifically in seismic data acquisition, Adnen is now determined to make a career change and become a data engineer.
Having worked in the first chain of the “Big Data” process, which involves collecting measurement data, Adnen brings valuable experience and insights to the field of data engineering. With a desire to expand his skills and transition into a new role, he began searching for profound data engineering training and courses.
Searching for Profound Data Engineering Training
During his research, Adnen explored various platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Quora. While he came across resources like Data Engineering Nanodegree on Udacity and Data Engineering with Python on Coursera, many of them fell short, either lacking practical projects or affordability. However, Adnen’s perseverance led him to Andreas Kretz on YouTube, where he discovered the Learn Data Engineering Academy.
What convinced Adnen to enroll in the Learn Data Engineering Academy were the remarkable content and the unique data platform blueprint shared by Andreas. This blueprint covered crucial aspects such as establishing connections, buffering, processing, storage, and visualization, and demonstrated its applicability in various environments, including local and cloud platforms. Adnen recognized the similarity between this approach and the data-sharing practices in his previous industry, which solidified his decision to choose the academy for his professional training.
Focusing on Essential Skills and Hands-On Projects
In his pursuit of becoming a data engineer, Adnen has placed his focus on courses that are highly valued in the industry. These include Spark, Kafka, SQL, NoSQL, Elasticsearch, and exposure to cloud service providers like AWS. By prioritizing these courses, Adnen aims to enhance his chances of securing a data engineering job.
The courses at the Learn Data Engineering Academy have proven to be immensely helpful for Adnen. He is currently working on his first project, which involves document streaming with Kafka, Spark, and MongoDB. After completing this project, he plans to delve into projects related to Time Series with Influx DB, Grafana, Apache Airflow, Elasticsearch, and Kafka KSQL. These hands-on projects provided by the academy have enabled Adnen to gain practical experience and develop the necessary skills to work on personal projects.
The Academy: A Unique Approach
What particularly stands out for Adnen about the Learn Data Engineering Academy are three key aspects:
"The courses are designed to give what you really need. It’s true that it’s a light version but it’s really great because it avoids you going down a rabbit hole with all the information available on the net. Also, the academy covers the latest trends, such as new modern data warehouses like Databricks and Snowflake. But the most important thing that sticks out is the number of example projects available.”
The Learn Data Engineering Academy has not only met but exceeded Adnen’s expectations, equipping him with the necessary skills and knowledge to pursue a career as a data engineer. He has become comfortable with Git/GitHub, Docker, and SQL. Through his first project, Adnen has learned from his mistakes and has acquired the ability to debug data from Kafka in Pyspark.
Adnen’s transition from seismic data collection to data engineering serves as an inspiring example of how determination and quality training resources can lead to remarkable career transformations. Through his experience with the Learn Data Engineering Academy, Adnen has found a platform that aligns with his career goals and provides him with the skills required in the dynamic field of data engineering.
Start your own journey
We hope you got inspired by Adnen’s journey. Now the big question for you is: are you ready to start your very own Data Engineering success story? Then join our Learn Data Engineering Academy today!
Unlocking Career Opportunities: Shraddha’s Journey Into Data Engineering
Meet Shraddha Kharangate, a lifelong student and seasoned professional with 7 years of experience in software development and testing in India. After facing a layoff last December, Shraddha embarked on a mission to upskill herself and land a new job. In this article, we dive into her experience with the Learn Data Engineering Academy, her journey into the world of data engineering, and the impact it has had on her career.
Finding the Right Path
When thinking about the challenges of finding profound Data Engineer training and courses, Shraddha notes that there are indeed many options available. However, not all courses provide a comprehensive syllabus that truly gives an idea of their coverage. Her search for the right fit led her to explore various options until she stumbled upon the Learn Data Engineering Academy.
Conviction through Content
Shraddha was convinced to enroll in the Academy after immersing herself in Andreas Kretz’s YouTube videos and LinkedIn podcasts. The content gave her a clear understanding of what to expect and the teaching methodology the course would encompass. The clarity and insight she gained from the content made the choice easy for her.
The Academy's Unique Strengths
When it comes to course focus, Shraddha highlights some exceptional courses, particularly those revolving around Data Stores, which left a lasting impression. Also, she finds the hands-on example projects to be incredibly helpful. They provide a structured way to kickstart her learning journey in data engineering, laying a strong foundation for her progress. But one aspect of the Learn Data Engineering Academy that particularly resonates with Shraddha is its emphasis on the bigger picture:
“The fact that it gives the bigger picture, the overall best practices, instead of getting into the in depth details of every other cloud solution, tool or platform [is very beneficial].”
This approach allows learners to explore and apply these principles across different cloud solutions with ease, recognizing commonalities among them.
Personal Progress and Expectations
Shraddha acknowledges that mastering the concepts covered in the courses requires dedication and time for implementation. While she rates her progress so far at 4 out of 10, she is aware that true proficiency will come through hands-on practice and application. Despite this, Shraddha expresses her satisfaction with the Learn Data Engineering Academy, as it met and even exceeded her expectations.
Start Your Own Journey
We hope you got inspired by Shraddhas journey. Now the big question for you is: are you ready to start your very own Data Engineering success story? Then join our Learn Data Engineering Academy today!
Code, Data, and Success: How Prakash Managed to Merge His Interests and Became a Senior Data Engineer
Prakash Dontaraju, a Senior Data Engineer at SentinelOne, embarked on a rewarding career transition. On his professional journey, Prakash started his career as a software engineer and later found himself drawn to data analysis. While working as a data analyst, he relished understanding business data, its aggregation, lineage, and security. However, he missed the aspects of software engineering, such as writing code, testing, logging, performance optimization, and design patterns. This led him to explore data engineering as a way to merge his interests and build scalable data solutions, thus setting his sights on becoming a data engineer.
Leveling Up With the Academy's 1-on-1 Coaching
Having been inspired by Andreas Kretz, an experienced Data Engineer, through his practical advice and technical knowledge shared on LinkedIn, Prakash decided to enroll in the Learn Data Engineering Academy's 1-on-1 coaching program in 2020. The Academy's insights into the day-to-day life of a data engineer and the required skills convinced him that this was the right step to shape his data engineering career.
Prakash's coaching journey with Andreas spanned around three months and closely mirrored the tasks of professional data engineers: building data pipelines. For his project, Prakash chose a dataset, selected the appropriate tools for his data pipeline, and deployed it on the Google Cloud Platform, making him the first student to opt for GCP back then. Throughout the program, he successfully built two data pipelines—one streaming and the other batch—each scalable and reliable.
“The best thing about the program was having two hours of office hours with Andreas each week to discuss my progress. I could share any data engineering challenges I had in finishing my project and get his feedback. During those office hours, I also saw the challenges other members had in implementing their projects and understood how Andreas helped them solve their challenges.”
Long-lasting Impact
One of the key areas where Andreas assisted Prakash was in understanding how to choose the right skills and tools for specific data pipelines. He learned to carefully consider business requirements while designing the pipeline components, including data ingestion, buffering, processing, storage, and analysis.
Beyond completing his project successfully, Prakash's time in the coaching program left a lasting impact.
“During my time in the coaching program, many others successfully built data pipelines using various tools and cloud platforms. I was able to understand how experienced data engineers solved data engineering challenges when Andreas answered our questions. I now always think about reliability, scalability, data quality, streaming or batch processing, choice of tools etc. before building a new data pipeline.”
Witnessing the Academy's Growth
Prakash was an early member of the Learn Data Engineering community when it was known as "Team Data Science", with just a small Slack channel and less than 50 members. He expresses joy in seeing how the Academy has now helped over 1500 individuals acquire Data Engineering skills and certifications.
“Personally, I’m grateful for the guidance Andreas provided. I wish all the members and everyone involved in building the academy more success.”
Start Your Own Journey
Prakash's inspiring journey showcases how the Learn Data Engineering Academy can empower professionals to transition into the world of data engineering and excel in this dynamic field.
We hope you got inspired too! Now the big question for you is: are you ready to start your very own Data Engineering success story? Then join our Learn Data Engineering Academy today!