I’d be curious on everyone’s take on https://roundup.getdbt.com/p/data-expertise-everywhere - I don’t actually agree the framing of “We will look back on the centralized analytics team in much the same way that we today look at typing pools.” But I do agree that analytics will be more distributed in the future.

@taylor I felt ambivalent about the metaphor. It gets at something deeply interesting (this technology will saturate the C suite, even if today that thesis sounds ridiculous!). At the same time, ironically it’s more of a hope or a pundit-prediction than a data-based prediction. What specifically didn’t you agree with?

@christian_minich typing is a learn it once, use it forever kind of skill, with opportunities for improvement on the margin. when everyone can type at a basic level, you don’t need typing pool. the same isn’t true for analytics. Even if everyone has the skill to do their own basic analyses (and they should) you’ll still benefit from the professionals. It’s just a flawed comparison in my view.

I think base-level data knowhow is going to become table-stakes in job interviews for many, many job roles. We'll still have need for experts and architects and "data wizards", but I expect we are not far from everyone making company decisions or having any kind of management responsibility will be expected to: read and write basic SQL, create their own basic BI reports, and send their own PRs to the central data team. They likely will need to be able to deploy their own basic DataOps pipelines (mini Meltano projects, for instance) with pre-designed patterns - so the SQL they write won't become someone else's support liability.