Mr. Burky, Business Intelligence Report Developer for Ariel Corporation
Published 27 Jul 2020
Tags: IT, business, engineeringWhy did you choose to pursue this career? What made you certain this was the right path?
I did not set out to become a report developer, it is the latest in a series of connected positions over a 30-year career. Generally, the moves were between related positions, and each came with some uncertainty. The positions have all built on each other and allowed me to gain new skills and work with different groups of people.
What events, prior employment, or educational experiences led you to your current job?
I started in Applications Engineering (sizing/applying equipment), moved into technical marketing (sales forecasting and developing technical documentation) and most recently moved to IT to apply my product and market knowledge in developing informational reports for various departments and the management team.
What schooling, education, and/or certifications did you complete to prepare you for this career?
Associate degrees in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Technologies, a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, SAP Business Warehouse and SAP Business Intelligence (WEBI) training courses.
How did you make the best use of your time in both your education and career?
Starting with the Associates degrees allowed me to jump right into the meat of the technical information and avoid many general classes (this helped with time and costs). This also allowed me to enter into a hands-on Co-op position in my second year of school. Once I had a career direction, I circled back and picked up a Bachelors degree through an accelerated evenings program. The Applications Engineering position offered me a wide variety of experiences from the very technical and field work to customer facing and light sales. This helped me to pick the direction I wanted to grow and move to later on.
What advice would you give to a high school or college student interested in pursuing this field of work?
Keep an open mind on changing positions and even departments within a company as there is valuable experience to be gained. If you want to get into reporting or data mining, take at least a basic SQL class to gain knowledge on database structures and tools used to query them.
What opportunities would you suggest high school students participate in?
Co-ops and internships are very valuable for finding out what you might want to do, and learn about the companies you might want to work for. Corporate culture varies widely from company to company and you can’t understand it without experiencing it. Also, any opportunity for “field” experience should be taken. Seeing how products are used by and meeting your end use customers is important.
What opportunities did you take as a student that helped advance your career (research, internships, etc.)
Co-op and college/corporate partner opportunities that allowed me to work with or at least get a glimpse at companies in different fields of interest.
What do you wish you had done differently with regards to your career/education?
A rotation though our company’s field service department would have been helpful in better understanding how our products are used, typical field issues and application problems. Also, this would have been valuable in learning firsthand how to deal with unhappy customers (developing better people skills).
What does a typical day at your job look like?
Much of my time is spent either meeting with my in house “customers” or working at my desk on my computer. The work is in phases; developing technical specs and mock-ups for new reports, developing data sources and the reports, and then working with the end users to test and verify the report results.
What was a surprising aspect of your job?
Resistance to change. One of our primary projects is to modernize the current reporting. Many of our groups are resisting moving to more dynamic reports or dashboards, and are opting to have their Excel style “data dumps” recreated in the new system. They prefer to do their own analysis rather than having the software do the work on the front end and digging into the details when needed.
What qualities are necessary to be successful in your field of work, and why?
Patience, product and systems knowledge, and the love of a good puzzle. Many times, we are asked to develop reports by people with a very narrow view of their specific data. Report developers have to understand how the data fits within the overall corporate data structure and where/how to get the complimenting data out of the systems. Also, it can take a lot of time and iterations to develop reports that accurately and properly represent the information being asked for.
Do you have any additional advice?
People and public speaking skills are very important for any career you enter into. Early in my career I developed and presented training courses on several of our products and attended “Toastmasters” meetings. This gave me more confidence in public speaking and lead to opportunities presenting at industry events. I did not spend time actively developing my people skills and this has somewhat limited my growth opportunities.