5 ms·

You didn't replace a SQL Analyst, you just gave them a query generator. End data consumers don't understand the data model, assumptions, quirks, etc. If they fi

You didn't replace a SQL Analyst, you just gave them a query generator. End data consumers don't understand the data model, assumptions, quirks, etc. If they fire the analyst, they are going to wind up drawing a lot of bad conclusions on anything more complicated than simple aggregations.

berkle4455 4y ago
You just described most SQL analysts I've worked with
- ellisv 4y ago
  I think that's because most SQL analyst who can understand the data model, assumptions, quirks, etc. usually get promoted into other positions.
  - fifilura 4y ago
    Unless they actually like what they do... It can actually be pretty rewarding to be the person who knows most about the data in the company, while solving logic puzzles during the day. PS. i do hope most analysts solve more interesting problems than the ones in TFA.
    - clbrmbr 4y ago
      Is that TFA as in RTFM?
      - fifilura 4y ago
        Yes, maybe that acronym was in fashion a decade ago. And maybe on another forum like /. But yes, similar meaning, but replace M with A = Article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28436632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28436632
  - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
    Yeah, IME the good business savvy SQL analysts get sucked into non-SQL assigned roles and nailing it because they write their own scripts.
    - fifilura 4y ago
      Why so. Why do you mean scripts are better than SQL?
      - dzamo_norton 4y ago
        A file of SQL code is commonly referred to as a script.
      - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
        *SQL scripts
- jeltz 4y ago
  Yeah, that is an issue a friend of mine has right now with his team. He randomly ended up as the manger of the data analytics team despite no analytics background (or really much programming background either). And one of his main frustrations is that the analysts do not understand the data model or the business. Before he became their manager his team just took report requests and then wrote some SQL and delivered some numbers. Without understanding what those numbers were supposed to mean or the quirks of the underlying data.
  - ep103 4y ago
    Clearly, the correct move here is to replace the entire team with Looker and let every department head create their own dashboards to track arbitrary kpis with no understanding of the product or underlying data model. /s
    - adrianN 4y ago
      The correct move seems to be to replace the team with a set of oracle bones. From the very limited information we have it seems to me like the team was used to justify whatever conclusions were already made before consulting them.
      - TeMPOraL 4y ago
        The whole practice is kind of a proof-of-work scheme for credibility and liability laundering: even if you intend the team/company to follow your conclusions regardless of what anyone else thinks or says, getting some analysts or outside consultants to burn non-trivial amount of time and money evaluating the situation before rubber-stamping your proposal, is what may be necessary for you to sell your ideas to the rest of the team/company. Such exercise may be especially important if you want to protect yourself from having your head served on the platter after your hare-brained idea fails spectacularly.
    - shubb 4y ago
      Who needs a data model when you can just dump a bunch of excel sheets and database dumps in a shared folder, call it a data lake, and encourage anyone who has a report to just throw it together in the free version of power bi?
- satisfice 4y ago
  Except now with no accountability whatsoever. Just a magic box that you get to worship.
ryanjshaw 4y ago
Maybe 5% of the business/operations people I've worked with would even want to do this. The rest prefer a smart human to walk them through building a report - most of the time this is because they don't actually know what they need, and they actually need an expert to sit down and figure it out with them.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  The longer I'm in the business, the more I feel like my value as a software developer is identifying and asking clarifying questions.
  - efitz 4y ago
    You nailed it. At the beginning of my career I thought that success and value to the organization was all about technical skills. 30 years later I now understand that most successful projects need people with modest or average technical skills and outstanding communication skills. It doesn't matter if you have super-genius engineers; if the business people don't really understand the problem that they're trying to solve then you're going to end up with a crap solution (may shiny, fast, and beautiful, but still crap).
  - majormajor 4y ago
    IME, this is the number one reason outsourcing (whether on-shore or off-shore) fails for many projects.
  - kieselguhr_kid 4y ago
    When I was new, I saw one of my more experienced colleagues ask a few questions that together saved the company more than $1 mil each year. ChatGPT might be a threat to automate some low-level tasks or help eliminate bugs, but it is nowhere near ready to evaluate the context of a system, understand its history, or think* through the consequences of a major business decision. * or think at all, in any meaningful way.
    - RhodesianHunter 4y ago
seandoh 4y ago
We're building https://www.olli.ai/ https://www.olli.ai/ to help with this. User's can ask questions in natural language, but more importantly, Olli can suggest what questions to ask based on the data.
mrbungie 4y ago
You can easily add more components to start thinking about models/assumptions/etc, like adding interfaces to Data Catalogs (i.e. Glue Data Catalog). As part of a POC I made, I built a similar bot without recursion for debugging and iterative query building though. It does the following: - It predicts most probable entities from the question. - Searches AWS Glue Data Catalog for the most probable/useful tables. - It builds an Athena SQL Query from N most useful tables. It obviously get it catastrophically wrong sometimes, but hell, it was a 3 hour POC. If you can make better indices that map entity->table relationships it should get better at searching tables. Add this kind of recursive/iterative debugging of queries, and you get at least something near a junior-level SQL Analyst. These kind of bots are analogous to Stable Diffusion, they DO need a good prompter/puppeteer/solution-verifier. Most non-senior Data Analysts also need one anyways.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  Thats not really fair to the human. The time to learn basic SQL may be longer, but the algorithm will never develop intuition or independence, while many junior analysts will eventually operate effectively on their own. It’s a neat tool for analysts as a query generator - I would use it in situations where I’m not familiar with the schema, but it would become less useful as I learn.
  - mrbungie 4y ago
    Yeah, maybe I should've said "first-weeks/months" level junior data analyst. But hell, as an analyst I would've paid a lot for a tool that searched intelligently through giant datawarehouses (or whatever consultants call them now) and at least gave you probable matches. Now that same thing exists and you can even finetune its "DSL" towards your own organization.
6510 4y ago
But it does lower the bar for asking questions a lot. Before you ask a human you have to do a sanity check. Most obvious is asking the same as last week but it could also be something readily available elsewhere.

berkle4455 4y ago

You just described most SQL analysts I've worked with

ellisv 4y ago
I think that's because most SQL analyst who can understand the data model, assumptions, quirks, etc. usually get promoted into other positions.
- fifilura 4y ago
  Unless they actually like what they do... It can actually be pretty rewarding to be the person who knows most about the data in the company, while solving logic puzzles during the day. PS. i do hope most analysts solve more interesting problems than the ones in TFA.
  - clbrmbr 4y ago
    Is that TFA as in RTFM?
    - fifilura 4y ago
      Yes, maybe that acronym was in fashion a decade ago. And maybe on another forum like /. But yes, similar meaning, but replace M with A = Article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28436632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28436632
- minsc_and_boo 4y ago
  Yeah, IME the good business savvy SQL analysts get sucked into non-SQL assigned roles and nailing it because they write their own scripts.
  - fifilura 4y ago
    Why so. Why do you mean scripts are better than SQL?
    - dzamo_norton 4y ago
      A file of SQL code is commonly referred to as a script.
    - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
      *SQL scripts
jeltz 4y ago
Yeah, that is an issue a friend of mine has right now with his team. He randomly ended up as the manger of the data analytics team despite no analytics background (or really much programming background either). And one of his main frustrations is that the analysts do not understand the data model or the business. Before he became their manager his team just took report requests and then wrote some SQL and delivered some numbers. Without understanding what those numbers were supposed to mean or the quirks of the underlying data.
- ep103 4y ago
  Clearly, the correct move here is to replace the entire team with Looker and let every department head create their own dashboards to track arbitrary kpis with no understanding of the product or underlying data model. /s
  - adrianN 4y ago
    The correct move seems to be to replace the team with a set of oracle bones. From the very limited information we have it seems to me like the team was used to justify whatever conclusions were already made before consulting them.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      The whole practice is kind of a proof-of-work scheme for credibility and liability laundering: even if you intend the team/company to follow your conclusions regardless of what anyone else thinks or says, getting some analysts or outside consultants to burn non-trivial amount of time and money evaluating the situation before rubber-stamping your proposal, is what may be necessary for you to sell your ideas to the rest of the team/company. Such exercise may be especially important if you want to protect yourself from having your head served on the platter after your hare-brained idea fails spectacularly.
  - shubb 4y ago
    Who needs a data model when you can just dump a bunch of excel sheets and database dumps in a shared folder, call it a data lake, and encourage anyone who has a report to just throw it together in the free version of power bi?
satisfice 4y ago
Except now with no accountability whatsoever. Just a magic box that you get to worship.

ryanjshaw 4y ago

Maybe 5% of the business/operations people I've worked with would even want to do this. The rest prefer a smart human to walk them through building a report - most of the time this is because they don't actually know what they need, and they actually need an expert to sit down and figure it out with them.

ethbr0 4y ago
The longer I'm in the business, the more I feel like my value as a software developer is identifying and asking clarifying questions.
- efitz 4y ago
  You nailed it. At the beginning of my career I thought that success and value to the organization was all about technical skills. 30 years later I now understand that most successful projects need people with modest or average technical skills and outstanding communication skills. It doesn't matter if you have super-genius engineers; if the business people don't really understand the problem that they're trying to solve then you're going to end up with a crap solution (may shiny, fast, and beautiful, but still crap).
- majormajor 4y ago
  IME, this is the number one reason outsourcing (whether on-shore or off-shore) fails for many projects.
- kieselguhr_kid 4y ago
  When I was new, I saw one of my more experienced colleagues ask a few questions that together saved the company more than $1 mil each year. ChatGPT might be a threat to automate some low-level tasks or help eliminate bugs, but it is nowhere near ready to evaluate the context of a system, understand its history, or think* through the consequences of a major business decision. * or think at all, in any meaningful way.
  - RhodesianHunter 4y ago

seandoh 4y ago

We're building https://www.olli.ai/ https://www.olli.ai/ to help with this. User's can ask questions in natural language, but more importantly, Olli can suggest what questions to ask based on the data.

mrbungie 4y ago

You can easily add more components to start thinking about models/assumptions/etc, like adding interfaces to Data Catalogs (i.e. Glue Data Catalog). As part of a POC I made, I built a similar bot without recursion for debugging and iterative query building though. It does the following: - It predicts most probable entities from the question. - Searches AWS Glue Data Catalog for the most probable/useful tables. - It builds an Athena SQL Query from N most useful tables. It obviously get it catastrophically wrong sometimes, but hell, it was a 3 hour POC. If you can make better indices that map entity->table relationships it should get better at searching tables. Add this kind of recursive/iterative debugging of queries, and you get at least something near a junior-level SQL Analyst. These kind of bots are analogous to Stable Diffusion, they DO need a good prompter/puppeteer/solution-verifier. Most non-senior Data Analysts also need one anyways.

arrosenberg 4y ago
Thats not really fair to the human. The time to learn basic SQL may be longer, but the algorithm will never develop intuition or independence, while many junior analysts will eventually operate effectively on their own. It’s a neat tool for analysts as a query generator - I would use it in situations where I’m not familiar with the schema, but it would become less useful as I learn.
- mrbungie 4y ago
  Yeah, maybe I should've said "first-weeks/months" level junior data analyst. But hell, as an analyst I would've paid a lot for a tool that searched intelligently through giant datawarehouses (or whatever consultants call them now) and at least gave you probable matches. Now that same thing exists and you can even finetune its "DSL" towards your own organization.

6510 4y ago

But it does lower the bar for asking questions a lot. Before you ask a human you have to do a sanity check. Most obvious is asking the same as last week but it could also be something readily available elsewhere.