Data dreams: Gurmol Sohi’s road from Business Analyst to Data Developer with Lighthouse Labs By: Kai Block July 11, 2024 Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Gurmol Sohi, a 2024 Data Analytics Flex grad, transitioned from a Business Analyst role to a Data Developer. Gurmol decided on Lighthouse Labs after previous positive experiences with our free course offerings and recommendations from friends and colleagues. The Program equipped him with the technical foundation, mentorship, Career Services support, and network to succeed. It opened up new career pathways, leading to multiple internship offers and a promising career in data development. Discover how Lighthouse Labs played a pivotal role in Gurmol’s professional growth and prepared him to reach his future aspirations. What were you up to before Lighthouse Labs? Over the summer, I worked as a business analyst at Innovate Calgary and practiced leetcode problems. I also networked in the tech community at various meetup events and developed my coding skills. At one point, I tried the Microsoft Power Up Program. What led you to want to take a tech Program, and why did you choose Lighthouse Labs? In 2020, I took free Web Development courses offered by Lighthouse Labs, and I knew that I would go back one day! I thought Lighthouse Labs had a great technical Program to get involved with and I appreciated the chance to learn from the mentors. I had many friends who completed Lighthouse Labs’ various Bootcamps, and when I was working at Neo Financial, I met many grads who had also studied there. I liked the funding options and that I could work part-time while completing the Program. Read about recent Lighthouse Labs grad Matt who now works at Neo Financial as a Senior Compliance Specialist. Become a Data Analyst in as little as 8 weeks! Classes start soon and there's room for you. Sign up now Tell us about your experience with the Data Analytics Flex Program. Lighthouse Labs’ Data Analytics Flex Program focused on SQL, statistical modelling with Python, and APIs, as well as a capstone project. I chose the part-time Flex Program over the full-time immersive Bootcamp because I was working at Neo Financial part-time during the Program and wanted to gain work experience so when I graduated, I had both education and work experience. This Program was very intensive, resulting in 4 projects, technical assessments, and a final presentation that I delivered for Demo Day. I used Larry Bot a lot to get support from mentors and made many assistance requests. I enjoyed debugging and troubleshooting as well as completing the coding challenges! A day in the life was going to lectures Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6–8 pm online, working over the weekend to get caught up on the content and create projects. We have a discord group with colleagues to discuss potential pitfalls and have a sense of support and community. There was a lot of work but it was fun to do. Some projects were harder than others like the API project with API requests running out or not knowing what to ask in the SQL project to gain insights. The Flex Program allowed a balance with work whereas the full-time Immersive Program seemed more intensive and required more time. My goals were to develop more coding skills and gain access to a cohort that was technically strong. I attended many events during the Program in the tech community in Calgary, getting to network with Lighthouse Labs grads in the community and partnership companies. Next steps: 1) Continue gaining cloud certifications 2) Developing projects in: fraud/anomaly detection loss forecasting customer segmentation profitability analysis credit risk forecasting leetcode/hackerrank/code chef developing roadmaps for product management, cloud solutions roles, and business analyst roles podcasts with Rainforest Alberta For more information about Gurmol’s experience, check out his Medium article here. How did the Data Analytics Flex Program impact your career? It helped me get several internship offers in Toronto and Ottawa. The Career Services team was very helpful. They sent me job postings on the Huntr platform and offered resume and technical interview training. I gained momentum to practice for interviews. I think it made me more technical, and it opened up new career pathways. The people I met really made the difference for me. I found a community where I could troubleshoot and explore the tech market. Talk to us about your new job! Explain a little of what you do now. I am working as a Data Developer, doing a lot of data cleaning, engineering and making workflow processes and system design. I help to collect data, organize it and then visualize it in Tableau to make dashboards for different users of the learning management system. There are different dashboards for employees and employers, and a final survey about the gamified virtual learning experience. What do you appreciate most about your new career or what are you most hopeful for moving forward? I am most hopeful that the skills I have gained will help me in any career by conducting data analysis, making machine learning models, and trying to use GenAI to the best of my ability. It will allow me to add another analysis skill to my portfolio, and I appreciate that this skill is something I can develop over time because I am a lifelong learner! What’s next? Tell us about you and your future career goals. I hope to continue my education and develop more projects to add to my portfolio. I know I am a good fit for startups as I can wear multiple hats, so I would like to build out data strategies and models for companies. My future goals involve working as a data scientist and becoming skilled in the entire data science lifecycle, confidently knowing what to do at each stage. What advice would you give someone who wants to transition into a tech career? Stay open-minded and try to come in with work experience. Make sure you have a diverse skillset and have a niche background. Don’t give up–it is a field for persistent people, so try hard and do your best. Anything else you want to share? I am thankful to the Program and the people I met along the way! Sign up for the Data Analytics Flex Program today Ready to find a career in Data Analytics like Gurmol? At Lighthouse Labs, we're here to help you gain the skills for your next role. Our Data Analytics Bootcamp is the quickest way to launch a career in Data Analytics. We offer an online 8-week, full-time, or 18-week, part-time Bootcamp option. The Bootcamp includes on-demand mentorship and lifetime Career Services. At the end of the Bootcamp, you'll have the tools and skills to level up your resume and find a career in Data Science. Read other recent graduates' stories Learn about Ben’s transition from property manager to data scientist Discover Oliver’s pathway from healthcare data analytics to machine learning engineering.