Getting a Big Data Job For Dummies

Chapter 6

Making Your Own Way (For the Experienced Professional)

In This Chapter

Finding the tools to learn

Teaching yourself what you need to know

Maybe you’ve already been in the IT workforce for a while — and you have the scars to prove it. You feel the waters of change churning. You’re thinking it may be time for a career change, and you hear big data calling your name. But you don’t have the time or money for extra schooling. What you know is that big data is all around you, and you have the aptitude to perform well in a big data role. If this sounds familiar, this chapter is for you!

If you’re going to chart your own path to a big data education, you should have an end goal in mind. Are you working today with business intelligence tools and want to become the next whiz in visualization analytics? Maybe you’re a Java programmer and you want to retool your skills around Hadoop, R, and Cassandra so you can apply for a big data programmer job.

This chapter helps you think about how to identify the technical gaps you may have and build a plan to fill them. It isn’t a cookbook, giving you the exact steps you should follow in order to magically become the perfect candidate for a big data job. That’s because there isn’t a specific set of steps that are guaranteed to get you where ...