Urgent career advice needed. Long post warning

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Urgent career advice needed. Long post warning

topaz_meadow_2505·

I will try to provide as much as info possible for right diagnosis. I'm an indian male with 1+ years of background with a degree in Information technology. I'm working in an IT org and my client is Johnson and Johnson. I gig as a data engineer. my salary is 762000 per annum in indian rupees. I am from state govt college not NIT or IIT. My in role experience is - using Google Redshift for building views that support front end dashboards in tableau, using control-m (browser version) job scheduling designs, ETL concepts, data warehouse concepts. I have good understanding of the end to end process and I've decent documentation best practices skills, people skills. My year end anniversary rating was 5/5 and I have decent understanding of the whole team structure and how every team works. I also use python for the ETL process but just calling commands. This is more or less my job background.

My skills:
I'm extremely confident in python. In my college days I dabbled in machine learning, AI, deep learning stuffs as well as html,css,js and published an app in play store built with kotlin. i interned at a startup as a machine learning engineer in my 2nd year. I have completed lots of udemy , edx and coursera courses . I have extremely few original projects of my own that are basic and lots of handson projects that i followed along with some course that i feel are insignificant. 100+ repos like this in my github from 2018. after getting role i stopped. I have courseras data structures and algorithms specialisation, and blockchain specialisation certificate but i copied some exam materials as i was in hurry. I sincerely completed edx machine learning course from MIT and I could built neural networks, BBC, rnn from scratch with equations and chain differentiations and everything. (with lack of practice i forgot). I participated and flunked in GSOC in 2nd year but learnt about html/css/js and have some knowledge of ui/ux colour theory too as I used sketch software to build a prototype for an app in a hackathon. Other than these I have done courses here and there like game development in Epic Games, built some 2D games and other courses out of curiosity. I have 4 published peer reviewed papers in IoT. one in Elsevier journal, 3 conference papers in Springer Nature. I will admit I am sharp enough to write those and get published but some portions are made up. Because some are concepts and not reproduced in real life, those were my final year grad research but some parts are fishy.

my actual analysis of myself :
I had 0 expertise of dbms (i hated it) and sql. but in job i learnt it and I am moderately solid in SQL. I practice interview questions and I am nice with postgresql or redshift. I'm very nice at python. I used flask to build webapps and deploy in heroku but largely i refer dicumentations and don't rely on memory. I understand little bit django but can learn it if necessary. I am weak in docker, kubernetes concepts. I realize basic CICd, git concepts and use it daily on job. I'm not solid at Data structures and algo, blockchain , IOT although i have proof but need to brush up a lot. I have 3 azure certification az900, dp900 and ai900 but they feel worthless to me. I am most confident in machine learning, deep learning as I once was extremely good but 2 years almost no practice. I suffer from imposter syndrome and I feel either i forgot everything or understand nothing.

my plans :
I'm planning on mastering data structures and algorithms. studying the ctci book and leetcoding. I am thinking of doing azure data engineer associate certificate but i have no idea if right choice or not.

What I require advice in :
please suggest me what career path to choose , allocation to this j&j project was random but work life balance is good and i am pleased. Team is fabulous. I suffer from clinical anxiety and depression from teenage years and find no aim and higher goals or lust for money doesn't gig for me. My driver is something that may pay well for future medical bills of my family but also is tough to achieve (but achievable) and secure for lengthy term. What position, firm, should I go after ? data engineer, or data scientist, or full stack engineer, or just grind leetcode and attempt for SDE or what i am confused. i took leave for 1 week following week to study but now I am unsure how to make most of my time. please assist. god bless you.

thanks and sorry for lengthy rant.

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6 comments

Get a coach whom you could trust. For context - I have over 20 YOE and still gig with a coach on major career decisions. Found it to be quite valuable.

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  1. You’ve touched each thing and moved away from it
  2. you’re using redshift in your current org but planning to do azure data certificate - how will this help you in your gig search, you’ve experience in aws redshift and did certificate in azure, now you don’t know any of them well enough to either do well in your current job or in new one
  3. you’ll confuse recruiters if you say so plenty of things on your resume - they won’t know which profile you’re most suited for, Honestly you also don’t know that
  4. Decide what you want to do following:
    a) frontend seems out of picture
    b) backend or data science seems the right track for you (data science largely)
    Since you’re already working on something similar, but using outdated tools such as control-M which half of startups haven’t heard about I’m certain.
    Research what they’re using,
    Startups utilising AWS are using RedShift / EMR / Glue etc
    Azkaban or something for scheduling (instead of Control-M)
    People are starting to use SnowFlake as well.
    And then gig in that direction, do AWS certificates
    Solutions Architect Associate and Data Science one
    Just focus on these 2 certs I’ll suggest.
    Move along that direction and then do everything later on (leetcode etc)
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Do you hope to coach me ?

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Also pay attention to your health,
Exercise regularly and leave drinking and smoking if you do those.

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I have no vices honestly. But yes, I'll begin exercise and meditation regularly. I live kind of sedentary lifestyle

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How does one get a coach?

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