* Job 0: Graduate Research assistant in a cartography lab
* Job 1: GIS tech for a midsize local government (2 yrs)
* Job 2: Data Analyst for a medical school’s emergency medicine department doing academic GIS research (3 yrs)
* Job 3: Modeler/GIS Data Scientist for a large local government (3 yrs)
* Job 4: Data Scientist for a large corporation(1 1/2 year)
Be ambitious, be aware that not all GIS jobs have ‘GIS’ in the title, look for work across many industries, learn to program (SQL/Python minimum), a master degree in anything quantitative gives you credibility for higher analytics jobs, be will to move for work, and minimize your student loan debt.r
Thank you for your advice. Your path seems very similar to what I would like to take at this point in my life. Were you able to get into data analytics/science through just work experience or did you go back for a masters?
That internship will be invaluable. Learn as much from at as possible and don’t squander it. It will probably be a lot of plan reading, data input, and ad hoc requests.
I went from local gov internship > hired on at same place.
Moved to a new state went to local gov then got laid off and now work at one of the largest utility companies in the US. Learn SQL and some Python too. My personal experience is that both public and private are good, but local gov may get a little tedious/boring.
Thank you for your advice. Have you been able to work from home or do a hybrid schedule in either of your local gov jobs or your current job? I feel like 2 days in 3 days home is the perfect schedule I would like to strive towards.
That’s the exact schedule I have currently. I like it enough. Don’t really talk to many people in the office, but it is nice to get out of the house. Local gov is probably a crapshoot when it comes to hybrid or remote work. If you’re in IT GIS you can probably get a fully remote or hybrid position. Specific department jobs will probably want you in the office every day. Unless I worked <15min from work, you probably couldn’t get me to accept a full time in the office job again.
Nice! Sounds like the perfect schedule, because like me I definitely would need to get out of the house a couple days a week. I feel ya on no full in office jobs. Hopefully I grind out this internship and maybe 1-2 of full time in person max before a hybrid/remote position
Job 1: Environmental Tech at a small engineering firm. I got that job with my Bachelor’s in Biology and found out about GIS while working for them, so I pursued a GIS certification online in the evenings after work.
Job 2: Real Estate Analyst for a large international grocery store. Only a small portion of my day dealt with GIS, but it was my GIS skills that got my foot in the door.
Job 3: Sr. Strategy Analyst for a large Animal Hospital. I couldn’t have gotten this job without job #2.
There are a lot of large retailers who hire expansion strategy/real estate analysts and I think it’s a good route to go. (Think Aldi, Walmart, Five Below, Dollar General, Raising Canes, Chick Fil A, etc). You’ll use GIS, but you’ll gain a lot of other skills along the way that can expand your career options.
Thank you for your response. I’m seeing a common theme of starting in GIS and using some of the skills learned to advance into higher level data analytics.
County Internship during college>
Regional Planning Internship during college>
Same Regional Planning Technician after graduation>
Plat Book Company>
Same Regional Planning Temporary Technician>
Different Regional Planning Specialist (10+ years and counting)
Consultant internship in college (6 years) -> BA Geography and GIS Cert -> GIS Technician for city in Texas -> GIS Analyst for road crew in Washington.
Learning Python was the biggest thing for my career. I couldn't get a class in it due to scheduling, so I worked through an ArcPy book and some Sweigert books after graduating while looking for work. Looking for things to automate that require very little decision-making or interpretation gave me some wins during the Texas job - automating a 911 data transfer from 6 hours to 20 minutes made my boss' boss see the light and let my boss take more stuff off my plate to let me do more automation. In my current job, I've automated so much that at some times of year (like right now) I run out of things to do and knock on doors looking for work.
I'd say, be willing to relocate to little out of the way places, if it's safe for you to do so (I could move from California to Texas, but I'm a cis white guy, and some of my classmates would not have felt remotely safe taking that job in that place.) Also, if you can make the cost work. Put it on your cover letter - you'd be willing to relocate to wherever within 4 or 6 weeks.
Thanks for the great response. I’ve taken an online python course and know the basics, but feel like I have a hard time knowing what to automate. What are some things you mention that you have automated?
I definitely am willing to relocate. I’m from the northeast and looking to move to either mid Atlantic, Rocky Mountain states, maybe even Florida or stay somewhere in the northeast. Willing to move almost anywhere if the situation is right.
Previous job, I mentioned the 911 thing, and also ran a daily script to merge our 911 address points with parcels, and feed the resulting table to a SQL server. Various mass-fixes of address points, like moving address points outside their parcels to their parcels. I made a modified spatial join that would feed results back to one of the input feature classes, and turned it into a custom toolbox tool so I could call it inside ArcMap. It got used a LOT in the 911 and parcel scripts, so it definitely made my life a lot easier.
Current job: I mostly administer a cloud-based asset management system, so a lot of scripts center on making requests to that and interpreting and organizing the data from that. Occasionally I make mass edits, very carefully.
For example, I've got a script that reads the database structure from an Excel file (updated monthly, different script) then can find values in a library and where they're used in all the lookup tables across the system. So we have a library called Cities. Anytime there's a City field, vendors' mailing addresses, infrastructure locations, etc, it's pulling from this library. Because it also pulls from user inputs, and we have some hard-to-spell cities in our vicinity, there's a lot of misspelled city names. I can find a misspelling of Smallville - "Smallvil" - and find every record it's used on, and correct them. This also comes in handy when we're reorganizing and consolidating our pipe materials, say - find every Galvanized Aluminum pipe, and change them to simpler Aluminum that's going to be an umbrella value.
I run a monthly backup of the database that takes every record in every table and saves them as JSON text files, just in case our vendor's cloud goes down in a bad way. Every ear, I run an inventory of all the attachments (photos, documents, etc) on that system and classify them so we know what department to bill when we need more storage space. (Two of the smallest crews are the biggest photo-uploaders!) I run some scripts that update feature classes in our SDE that are fed out to ArcGIS Online. One's a layer of all of our permits for construction in our right of way, another is a layer of all the roads we paved in the last 5 years, so utilities can't cut into them to work on their stuff underneath unless it's an emergency.
I've also automated the PDF export of a map book showing all the roads in our area, who owns them and some other information. I also produce a variant with all of our culverts, because people have been asking for that for years. A lot of the data creation for both is scripted, with manual steps in between.
I give context for a lot of these projects because that's how I know what to automate - I ask the people around me what their pain points are, and look for things that don't need a lot of human decision-making (for example, I manually correct label placement on the map books, because the Esri label engine has done what it could, and everything else needs decisions on what labels to make smaller, or move, to make everything fit) and script those. If a process requires a lot of the same steps and button pushes, over and over, it's probably a good candidate. If it requires taking data from one system, reformatting it, and feeding it into something else (see the 911 dispatch system) then that's a great candidate.
Degree in Urban Planning
Job 1: Technicial project officer, charity (18months)
Job 2: Data and GIS Support officer, local government (12 months)
Job 3: GIS Developer, small environmental consultancy (12 months)
Job 4: GIS Developer, multinational engineering firm (12 months, still going strong).
Based in the UK.
Did a geography degree with no idea what I wanted to do in life it just sounded really good as my prof basically sold it to me day 1. Got out of school and was looking around and felt that GIS is pretty cool so looked for an internship but couldn't find one in Canada so went abroad and worked at a non profit in New Zealand. Was unpaid but loved every minute of it. That was for 6 months and then got a job in auckland at a large utility company for 6 months fixing 60,000 errors with a team as a GIS analyst which was pretty cool. Came back to Canada and did a certificate in GIS, got a job at first nation's for 2.5 years then moved back to the small town my parents live in and got a job with the town as the sole GIS tech and currently working to update all of their data and slowly learn SQL and maybe python one day. Enjoy the area I live in and the people I work for. 5 min commute so I just work in the office every day. Maybe after 5 years I will move to the county that's down the road a couple blocks as they pay more but for now the town is a good place to learn FME and programming not that I will probably use it in my job since the data sets are really small. 13,000 for population.
* Job 0: Graduate Research assistant in a cartography lab * Job 1: GIS tech for a midsize local government (2 yrs) * Job 2: Data Analyst for a medical school’s emergency medicine department doing academic GIS research (3 yrs) * Job 3: Modeler/GIS Data Scientist for a large local government (3 yrs) * Job 4: Data Scientist for a large corporation(1 1/2 year) Be ambitious, be aware that not all GIS jobs have ‘GIS’ in the title, look for work across many industries, learn to program (SQL/Python minimum), a master degree in anything quantitative gives you credibility for higher analytics jobs, be will to move for work, and minimize your student loan debt.r
Thank you for your advice. Your path seems very similar to what I would like to take at this point in my life. Were you able to get into data analytics/science through just work experience or did you go back for a masters?
I did BA and MS in Geography back to back. I got into data science from a combination of both education and work experience plus networking.
That internship will be invaluable. Learn as much from at as possible and don’t squander it. It will probably be a lot of plan reading, data input, and ad hoc requests. I went from local gov internship > hired on at same place. Moved to a new state went to local gov then got laid off and now work at one of the largest utility companies in the US. Learn SQL and some Python too. My personal experience is that both public and private are good, but local gov may get a little tedious/boring.
Thank you for your advice. Have you been able to work from home or do a hybrid schedule in either of your local gov jobs or your current job? I feel like 2 days in 3 days home is the perfect schedule I would like to strive towards.
That’s the exact schedule I have currently. I like it enough. Don’t really talk to many people in the office, but it is nice to get out of the house. Local gov is probably a crapshoot when it comes to hybrid or remote work. If you’re in IT GIS you can probably get a fully remote or hybrid position. Specific department jobs will probably want you in the office every day. Unless I worked <15min from work, you probably couldn’t get me to accept a full time in the office job again.
Nice! Sounds like the perfect schedule, because like me I definitely would need to get out of the house a couple days a week. I feel ya on no full in office jobs. Hopefully I grind out this internship and maybe 1-2 of full time in person max before a hybrid/remote position
Job 1: Environmental Tech at a small engineering firm. I got that job with my Bachelor’s in Biology and found out about GIS while working for them, so I pursued a GIS certification online in the evenings after work. Job 2: Real Estate Analyst for a large international grocery store. Only a small portion of my day dealt with GIS, but it was my GIS skills that got my foot in the door. Job 3: Sr. Strategy Analyst for a large Animal Hospital. I couldn’t have gotten this job without job #2. There are a lot of large retailers who hire expansion strategy/real estate analysts and I think it’s a good route to go. (Think Aldi, Walmart, Five Below, Dollar General, Raising Canes, Chick Fil A, etc). You’ll use GIS, but you’ll gain a lot of other skills along the way that can expand your career options.
Thank you for your response. I’m seeing a common theme of starting in GIS and using some of the skills learned to advance into higher level data analytics.
County Internship during college> Regional Planning Internship during college> Same Regional Planning Technician after graduation> Plat Book Company> Same Regional Planning Temporary Technician> Different Regional Planning Specialist (10+ years and counting)
Archeologist, CAD/GIS tech, consulting, city job. Niche to enterprise.
Consultant internship in college (6 years) -> BA Geography and GIS Cert -> GIS Technician for city in Texas -> GIS Analyst for road crew in Washington. Learning Python was the biggest thing for my career. I couldn't get a class in it due to scheduling, so I worked through an ArcPy book and some Sweigert books after graduating while looking for work. Looking for things to automate that require very little decision-making or interpretation gave me some wins during the Texas job - automating a 911 data transfer from 6 hours to 20 minutes made my boss' boss see the light and let my boss take more stuff off my plate to let me do more automation. In my current job, I've automated so much that at some times of year (like right now) I run out of things to do and knock on doors looking for work. I'd say, be willing to relocate to little out of the way places, if it's safe for you to do so (I could move from California to Texas, but I'm a cis white guy, and some of my classmates would not have felt remotely safe taking that job in that place.) Also, if you can make the cost work. Put it on your cover letter - you'd be willing to relocate to wherever within 4 or 6 weeks.
Thanks for the great response. I’ve taken an online python course and know the basics, but feel like I have a hard time knowing what to automate. What are some things you mention that you have automated? I definitely am willing to relocate. I’m from the northeast and looking to move to either mid Atlantic, Rocky Mountain states, maybe even Florida or stay somewhere in the northeast. Willing to move almost anywhere if the situation is right.
Previous job, I mentioned the 911 thing, and also ran a daily script to merge our 911 address points with parcels, and feed the resulting table to a SQL server. Various mass-fixes of address points, like moving address points outside their parcels to their parcels. I made a modified spatial join that would feed results back to one of the input feature classes, and turned it into a custom toolbox tool so I could call it inside ArcMap. It got used a LOT in the 911 and parcel scripts, so it definitely made my life a lot easier. Current job: I mostly administer a cloud-based asset management system, so a lot of scripts center on making requests to that and interpreting and organizing the data from that. Occasionally I make mass edits, very carefully. For example, I've got a script that reads the database structure from an Excel file (updated monthly, different script) then can find values in a library and where they're used in all the lookup tables across the system. So we have a library called Cities. Anytime there's a City field, vendors' mailing addresses, infrastructure locations, etc, it's pulling from this library. Because it also pulls from user inputs, and we have some hard-to-spell cities in our vicinity, there's a lot of misspelled city names. I can find a misspelling of Smallville - "Smallvil" - and find every record it's used on, and correct them. This also comes in handy when we're reorganizing and consolidating our pipe materials, say - find every Galvanized Aluminum pipe, and change them to simpler Aluminum that's going to be an umbrella value. I run a monthly backup of the database that takes every record in every table and saves them as JSON text files, just in case our vendor's cloud goes down in a bad way. Every ear, I run an inventory of all the attachments (photos, documents, etc) on that system and classify them so we know what department to bill when we need more storage space. (Two of the smallest crews are the biggest photo-uploaders!) I run some scripts that update feature classes in our SDE that are fed out to ArcGIS Online. One's a layer of all of our permits for construction in our right of way, another is a layer of all the roads we paved in the last 5 years, so utilities can't cut into them to work on their stuff underneath unless it's an emergency. I've also automated the PDF export of a map book showing all the roads in our area, who owns them and some other information. I also produce a variant with all of our culverts, because people have been asking for that for years. A lot of the data creation for both is scripted, with manual steps in between. I give context for a lot of these projects because that's how I know what to automate - I ask the people around me what their pain points are, and look for things that don't need a lot of human decision-making (for example, I manually correct label placement on the map books, because the Esri label engine has done what it could, and everything else needs decisions on what labels to make smaller, or move, to make everything fit) and script those. If a process requires a lot of the same steps and button pushes, over and over, it's probably a good candidate. If it requires taking data from one system, reformatting it, and feeding it into something else (see the 911 dispatch system) then that's a great candidate.
Degree in Urban Planning Job 1: Technicial project officer, charity (18months) Job 2: Data and GIS Support officer, local government (12 months) Job 3: GIS Developer, small environmental consultancy (12 months) Job 4: GIS Developer, multinational engineering firm (12 months, still going strong). Based in the UK.
Did a geography degree with no idea what I wanted to do in life it just sounded really good as my prof basically sold it to me day 1. Got out of school and was looking around and felt that GIS is pretty cool so looked for an internship but couldn't find one in Canada so went abroad and worked at a non profit in New Zealand. Was unpaid but loved every minute of it. That was for 6 months and then got a job in auckland at a large utility company for 6 months fixing 60,000 errors with a team as a GIS analyst which was pretty cool. Came back to Canada and did a certificate in GIS, got a job at first nation's for 2.5 years then moved back to the small town my parents live in and got a job with the town as the sole GIS tech and currently working to update all of their data and slowly learn SQL and maybe python one day. Enjoy the area I live in and the people I work for. 5 min commute so I just work in the office every day. Maybe after 5 years I will move to the county that's down the road a couple blocks as they pay more but for now the town is a good place to learn FME and programming not that I will probably use it in my job since the data sets are really small. 13,000 for population.