What I learned in my first year as a Junior Data Engineer 

By: Kathryn Lepine and Trevor Mann

In her first year at StellarAlgo, Kathryn Lepine led a client migration project with one of her favourite teams. She built up her technical and communications skills in Data Engineering and is keen to take on new data challenges. 

Her manager, Trevor Mann, Director of Data Engineering, said this kind of growth only happens when there is trust and psychological safety.

Kathryn and Trevor reflect on the past year, and how it feels to work in a culture of continuous learning and full team support. 

What top skills have you learned as a Junior Data Engineer? 

Kathryn: Over the past year, I’ve learned many data engineering tools like programming in SQL, working with our ETL pipelines daily, and getting familiar with AWS and cloud infrastructure. I’ve also really developed my problem-solving and data analysis skill set.
On our CDP (customer data platform), I can notice when the data looks off and can go through our pipeline and investigate every step of the way to pinpoint what is happening. 

The other skill I’ve learned is continuous improvement. Everyone on the team asks: Is there anything we can do to improve and make it better next time? We’re given time to explore how things are built and get curious about why they are this way. 

Trevor: I’ve seen how Kathryn has grown not just her technical skills, but also analytical and communication skills. Kathryn is able to connect the dots on how data will affect clients in a meaningful way both internally and externally. She troubleshoots complex issues, not just at the surface level but goes deeper to diagnose root causes and doesn’t stop there, she comes up with fixes to address it. 

Through this problem-solving work, Kathryn has supported many teams at StellarAlgo like Account Managers, Delivery Leaders,  Developers and Platform Engineers. She’s always keen to learn, try things out, and take on challenges.

How have you felt supported by the team? 

Kathryn: When I started, Trevor said: “I always have time to help you.” I always felt like my questions mattered and it created a very safe environment where learning is encouraged. If I was ever stuck, I knew I could ask him questions without fear of judgment. He’s an excellent listener, approachable, and super patient, which makes it a great environment to learn. 

This leadership trickles down to everyone on the Data Engineering team and I’ve learned a lot from my team members Shokouh and Seyi as well, who I especially worked closely with when I started. Even outside our team, everyone at StellarAlgo relies on each other.

Trevor: We focus on creating trust and safety with the team. I want people to challenge things and always be curious. Kathryn questions the what, why, and how to make sure she understands the task, and that’s a very important skill. Nobody’s going to blame. We’re all accountable for our work and hold each other accountable for the team’s work in a culture that promotes psychological safety. 

What’s a project you’re especially proud of over the past year? 

Kathryn: I led a migration project with a client from our legacy SQL server to our new platform on AWS. I’m on the delivery team so I also got to talk to clients directly and see the impact of our tool to a higher degree. I’m a fan of this team outside of work so it was exciting to better understand the data of a team I have a personal connection to.

Trevor: Kathryn was independent in leading this migration with support from the team and it was very successful. Not just in migrating, but she found new ways to enhance how the data and how it showed up in the CDP.

What’s next for your growth at Stellar? 

Kathryn: I want to keep learning and become a better Data Engineer. Every project I work on, I have more opportunities to grow my skills. I’ve had the chance to work on huge data sets with nuances I haven’t encountered before.

Trevor: There are many ways to grow in Data Engineering and Kathryn is a great example. There are opportunities to learn data modeling aspects, cloud architecture, and building infrastructure. There’s excitement in terms of our direction, growth, and the future at StellarAlgo as a company. You can feel it from talking to people at the company, they’re excited about where we’re going and that’s why we’re all here. 

See our current job opportunities at StellarAlgo here. 

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