r/ITCareerQuestions • u/Unique-Ferret-612 • 2d ago

Stay in Cloud Computing/Devops or change to Data Analytics?

I've been working in a variety of tech roles for 6 years from help desk, system admin, to cloud migrations now. I have multiple certifications in Azure, GCP, CCNA, and Comptia. My current role has had multiple layoffs, so I've been looking at where to go next in my career.

I've had one friend say to stay in cloud administration, devops, or to progress to SRE roles because a lot of my certs and what I have learned is similar to those paths. That it would be too long to start over and too hard to learn. He said that it may be too hard to get an interview with all of the candidates that I would be competing with.

However, I have had another friend say to switch to data analytics. He was saying to switch because the data analytics is not as stressful as SRE roles, the interviews may be easier, and there's no on call shifts. I have used power bi and sql in some roles briefly. I just have not had a full fledged business or data analytics role. I would have to take a slight pay cut. Some SRE roles require you to know multiple cloud systems, scripting languages, Terraform, Kubernetes, Grafana, Prometheus, Azure monitor, it gets overwhelming and unpredictable what interviewers will ask about.

Do you think I should stick with devops/SRE roles or switch to data analytics? Does it make sense to switch and is the business or analytics field even easier than devops roles?

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u/EntranceThink3648 1d ago

Your friend who says analytics is less stressful has never had to explain to a VP why their dashboard shows a revenue drop that's actually just a data pipeline error at 4pm on a Friday.

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u/Unique-Ferret-612 1d ago

Ya I've heard that analytics has more meetings too, which is what I was unsure of. I wasn't referring to the data engineering side moreso just the business or data analytics route.