Data engineering & analytics
Build dashboards that answer business questions
Power BI/Tableau/Looker Studio: model data, KPIs, drill-downs, publish and present.
~20 focused hours·beginner
Tools: Power BI, Tableau, Looker Studio, DAX, SQL
Market relevance — share of job ads asking for this
What employers mean
You should be able to…
- Model a star schema (fact + dimension tables) from raw exports before building visuals
- Write basic-to-intermediate DAX or calculated fields for KPIs (YoY growth, running totals)
- Build drill-down dashboards a non-technical stakeholder can self-serve
- Connect live data sources (database, Google Sheets, API) rather than static file uploads
- Design for the audience: pick the right chart type, avoid clutter, highlight the one number that matters
- Publish and share a dashboard with proper access/refresh scheduling
- Present a dashboard live and answer 'why' questions the visuals alone don't explain
Needs first: Query and model data with SQL
Learn — free, link-checked
The few resources that matter
Read · beginner · 30 min · support.google.com
Get started with Looker Studio
Google's own guide to connecting data sources and building interactive reports in a tool that's free forever, no license needed. — Google
Watch · beginner · 40 min · youtube.com
How to use Microsoft Power BI - Tutorial for Beginners
Concise, screen-recorded build of a real Power BI report from a former Microsoft PM — good model for a portfolio dashboard. — Kevin Stratvert
Course · beginner · 180 min · learn.microsoft.com
Power BI training
Official, free learning path covering data modeling, DAX basics, and publishing dashboards — the exact skill 18 job posts named. — Microsoft Learn
Practice
Power BI dashboard for a Tier-2/3 India kirana-delivery business
Simulate 6 months of order data for a hyperlocal delivery business (order time, city, delivery partner, UPI vs COD, delay minutes, rating) and build a Power BI or Looker Studio dashboard with a KPI summary page and two drill-down pages (by city, by delivery partner). Model the data properly with a star schema rather than one flat table.
Done when
- Data is modeled as fact + dimension tables, not one wide flat sheet
- At least 3 DAX/calculated measures beyond simple SUM (e.g. % on-time, MoM growth, repeat-customer rate)
- Drill-down works: clicking a city on the summary page filters the detail page
- Published/shareable link or a 3-5 min recorded walkthrough explaining design choices
Prove it
Evidence a recruiter can check
- Published Power BI/Tableau Public/Looker Studio dashboard link that a recruiter can open and interact with
- Public GitHub repo with the data model documentation and DAX/calc-field formulas explained
- A short recorded walkthrough (Loom) presenting the dashboard as if to a business stakeholder
- Microsoft Learn Power BI learning-path completion badge, linked
Interview
Questions you'll get asked
- Walk me through how you'd design a dashboard for a sales team from scratch — what do you ask first?
- What's the difference between a calculated column and a measure in Power BI/DAX?
- How do you handle a dashboard that's slow because the underlying data model is a mess?
- When would you use a line chart vs. a bar chart vs. a table — and when should you NOT use a pie chart?
- How do you set up row-level security so different regional managers see only their data?
- A stakeholder asks for '20 more metrics' on one page — how do you push back constructively?
- How would you set up scheduled refresh for a dashboard fed by a live SQL database?