Data analytics and data-driven decision-making are crucial for businesses to stay ahead. But what if you're new to the world of analytics engineering and don't have much technical experience with, for example, dbt™? We sat down with Giancarlo Masera, Data Analyst at Levity, who made a career change - from a non-technical role to now working daily with dbt™.

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What challenges were you facing before choosing Paradime?

I joined Levity around two years ago and was tasked with calculating key performance indicators (KPIs) such as conversion and activation rates. I had never worked in dbt™ before, so that was a challenge in itself. My manager suggested that we should look into Paradime, and looking back at my journey, I actually learned dbt™ through using Paradime.

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The platform is very intuitive, even for someone who doesn't come from a technical analytics background. For example, initially, I create separate dbt™ files for each project. With the help of Paradime’s customer support team, I learned to structure projects with intermediate tables and create a central source of truth. This way, I could build one or two queries to solve specific business problems using a structured dataset, saving me hours and hours.

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Many people out there could benefit greatly from learning dbt™ and using a tool like Paradime to streamline all their analytics work, but they might think it's too complex or technical. With the right support and tools, I got up to speed quickly, and I can tell you straight away that it is worth the time based on all the hours I'm saving and the improved accuracy of my work.

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What 5 key features and benefits has helped you on your journey

1. Seamless workflow

Paradime allows me to perform all my dbt™ work in one place, from setting up projects to running queries and accessing data. The platform is really intuitive, which makes it easy to get up to speed.

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2. Lineage and diagrams

As a visual person, I use the lineage feature frequently. It helps me visualize the flow of data in my projects.

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3. Jinja Functions

I found that Jinja functions were super helpful for running tasks over a set of variables, automating calculations and reducing manual work.

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4. Data querying

Having the ability to query data directly within Paradime helps me streamline my workflow.

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5. Tailored support

Paradime’s support team helped me get up to speed in no time when I started to use the platform. They know dbt™ inside-out and they were able to efficiently train me even though I had a non-technical background. The team even taught me data best practices beyond the Paradime platform.

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Do you have any advice for someone who is new to data analytics and dbt™?

My advice is to define what you want the project's final output to be, such as only a few "rich" tables, and then work backwards to find the best way to get there. Something that helped me was to document my projects and write down the schema.