Cannot emphasize how helpful your content has been. GIS can be a bit of niche field and online info is not always as prevalent as other tech fields. I have basic fundamental skills from my undergrad but I am also the only GIS person in my office so it can be a bit overwhelming at times how much I still have to learn.
Wow so glad to hear that! That’s exactly how I felt early in my career but I was fortunate to learn from a lot of great people at my job at CARTO and hopefully I can share what I have learned in some small way.
Thank you for your videos, Matt! I am trying to switch over to an entry level GIS position after working in IT data roles for 25 years. Proficient in SQL, Python, data management, and hoping these skills can transfer over to GIS.
As a recently retired GIS ANALYST/… I can’t agree more with this perspective, although I might add FME, ( the Swiss Army knife) to the tool kit. Thanks again for sharing!
Good to find a channel like yours Matt! I'm a "failed" astrophysicist (no jobs in the field) switching over to a GIS career now. I have years of experience analyzing data, including GIS, but didn't know how to translate this into experience for the private sector. Had a GIS technician job, but just got fired on a whim and back to square one. Now I just want to become an analyst, so this is all helpful advice, but how long should I committ to training and practice before I start reapplying? I'm thinking 3 months min (like coding bootcamps) but 6 months feels way better.
I think you have the right idea but I would definitely specialize a bit too by using your previous background and find some jobs that will see that as an asset. I would check out spatial data science or geospatial data engineering roles that ask for specialized skills over broad GIS Analyst roles. Remote work has made this easier for sure.
Thankyou for your amazing roadmap video. your videos are awesome. I just wanted to know when I will understand that I have learned enough to progress into next tool. I mean at first you told us to learn QGIS, so I wanted to know that which topics should I cover while learning QGIS and similarly for other tools which topic should I cover. thank you again for sharing such insights.
Fair question! This depends on your work you are doing so I would focus on learning the tools in the context of a project. For example if you are working with a lot of raster data focus on those tools in QGIS then SQL then Python.
Really digging deep into my education in ESM focused geography with a minor in geospacial science & technologies and learning on ArcMap and ArcPro is a sharp learning curve… but skyrockets your understanding of how to represent and manipulate data Cal Poly Humboldt! Go Jacks! 🌲💛💚
Go Jacks! Class 2014 here! Humboldt actually started offering GIS courses during my last term but I was already set to graduate when I learned about them, so sadly missed out at that time.
As always, your video answered many of the burning questions in a simple, understanding format. I do have a question; how do you build a portfolio or showcase your work on Linkedin if you work for a company that deals with government clients. My venture into the GIS realm is a bit funny. I was hired as an executive assistant, but after 6 months, I started doing GIS. Before that, I didn't even know what GIS was, never thought geography was that important in school, except to learn where cities and places are for travelling. Anyway, all this was like more than 2 years ago. My knowledge has expanded from creating maps on GIS Cloud to QGIS to python and PyQGIS, SQL and now Prompt Engineering with ChatGPT. I have been using Chat GPT a lot these days to automate many of the mundane aspects of GIS. During these two years, I have also solved a lot of challenges for my company and clients, mostly because it is just me doing all these things. But due to NDA and security, I can't show any of the work online, like a screenshot of the maps or the process or even python scripts. In this case, how do I build a portfolio? Do I create dummy projects?
Thanks so much and I think your best bet is to replicate the work you are doing in example projects. Keep in mind it doesn’t have the be the whole project but just parts or even techniques you used which you can share in posts and pin to your profile. I have another video on the topic too.
This is a great video ... I'm trying to land a job in or outside Upwork to get more experience with these tools (Python-GeoPandas, PostGIS, Pandas, NetworkX, OSMnx). However, I'm not sure that companies inside the USA are actively hiring people who live outside of the USA. Thanks a lot for these helpful videos.
Good to hear and I think there are definitely more companies open to remote work from outside the US especially since the pandemic. Keep trying and also look in other geographies too!
Great video and definitely a fair amount of information to process. Granted, my story is as niche as this field of work. I happen to have a bachelor of science in Geography and took some Geospatial courses. However, this was back in 2012 when i graduated and was never really assisted on job prospects or even knew this career was a possibility. I am turning towards this now while life is good emotionally (married and have a kid born 2 months ago). i never felt satisfied with my work (only did blue collar jobs). If i were to try to follow these steps and put in the work, would i possible have a chance to make this career path work, or is it too little too late?
Definitely I have talked to a ton of people who have made some pretty drastic career switched into geospatial. Some didn’t have the background you had. And congrats on the new child!
Thank-you for the video. Something that I am noticing with people in the surveying field is that they know what ArchGIS is, but they don't know what QGIS is. I got asked. "Do you have any experience with ArchGIS ESRI?", I said "NO, But I have experience with QGIS." I realised that the person who asked this doesn't know what QGIS is. I Only just looked up the differences between the two and found that the main difference is, QGIS is opened sourced.
After 10 years I lost my job due to restructuring times in my company, I am GIS educated, and across 10 years I developed GIS software in a huge IT corporation for telco sector. My last position was Product Manager. Now I am looking for a new job in GIS and is very hard to find something interested. GIS is still a niche, especially in my country Poland. Probably I will change my carier path and I become the scrum product owner in fintech or e-commerce industry. My experience and education in GIS will be wasted. :(
Hey Matt awesome video! I am in a remote sensing role using Bentley Powerview for LiDAR and Orthoimagery processing. I want to transition into a more traditional GIS role as an analyst but find I am lacking in skills to do so. This gives a clearer picture of areas I can work on. I see you have a BA in Geography - I hold a BSc in Geography with a concentration in Geomatics - all that means is I took a handful of GIS and Remote Sensing courses. A question I have is do you have any other certifications or schooling aside from your Bachelors? There are local advanced diploma programs but I am unsure if they are necessarily useful in employment opps. When you transitioned into a role with CARTO what was it that helped get you the interview and hired? Thanks again for the great content!
So I don’t have any other degrees or certificates. I learned my technical skills from online courses and tutorials and make sure to network - especially using LinkedIn!
I did not hear you mention ArcGIS Pro at all. The industry I intend to work for uses this particular software. Are you familiar with it? I heard QGIS (a free community software) has no advanced mapping functionalities. But my main question is: Does learning QGIS easily transfer to ArcGIS Pro? Thanks.
Yes I am familiar with ArcGIS and used it in college but haven’t since 2010. The concepts will definitely transfer but you will need to learn the particulars of the tool itself (such as names of analysis and menus/toolboxes). That said QGIS is equally useful and has a lot of feature parity.
I haven't used ArcGIS or Esri since 2010 when I graduated and I can do everything I need with a mix of the tools I mentioned in the video. Certainly if it is required for your job that is one story, but if you are doing things on your own then I would try QGIS first as it has 99% of the same functionality.
hello! greetings from Paraguay. Any advice for landing a 100% remote job in the US and such?, one in which I could work from my home country? I'm a geographic and environmental engineer specialized in GIS and right now I'm studying python while applying to data science masters. I wouldn't want to leave my country, but I'm exploring remote opportunities
Hey Matt, I am currently in an environmental scientist role and am looking at potentially moving towards GIS. I have no prior experience except one class I took in college about 6 years ago. In your opinion do you think it would be beneficial to obtain a GIS certificate? Or would building your portfolio on your own and presenting that in a job application be enough to land an entry level job? Thanks!
Generally if you can build out some sort of portfolio that is a good place to start to see what you might be able to do. Self study is totally fine as long as you can show that you can do the work. However if you are seeing that there are a lot of jobs that want the credential then that may be something to consider.
I've been working in IT support and implementation in finance and security for over 30 years helping customers implement technology and want to move into GIS - an area that I've been interested in for awhile. Is it realistic to think I can move into GIS at 56 years old? Will anyone hire a new old guy?
Yes! Those skills you have are definitely in demand so if you can use those IT skills to implement geospatial systems or cloud technology there is plenty of opportunity for that in GIS!
I basically never see any ads mentioning SQL. Also, I hate coding. GIS has driven me to be very close to doing something stupid I can't take back. GIS ruined my life.
I am a Masters student of Geography and a pg diploma student of applied geoinformatics, so, i want to know that- how will i apply to get a job range about 30,000 rupees up
I have now watched 6 videos of you. Please get to the point, where less of the anointed words are conveyed (advertising included) and more of the skills needed to achieve the announced goals are demonstrated in detail, than from a 10km view - that'll be fine. Thank you.
Hi sir.. I got an offer in GIS domain software company with WFH I am a graduated in mechanical engineering with 2.6 years career gap.. (But in interested IT sector) Could you plz guide me sir.. If i select this domain how is career and growth. For suppose, if i continue this one can i shift to another domain (like development or testing) Ur feedback is most important!!! Thank you
How about concepts in geography? I have some experience in Python and SQL. Coming from a business background, I know nothing about geography. Won't geog concepts be needed to know how to analyze spatial data? Any recommended resources? Thanks
Definitely actually working on some content about that now. If you know Python I would check out my other videos on the geospatial Python courses as there are some courses that cover those introductory geospatial concepts.
i have a degree in GIS and i am trying to become a good GIS Analyst. If you can please enlighten me what should i do and if you are able to send me good tutorials i will be thankful
What are your thoughts on AI code assistants / data analytics tools like OpenAI's Code Interpreter and the impact of LLM's in the sector now moving forward for someone just beginning?
The professional industry uses arcgis and python. His first two recommendations for moving into the industry quickly are to learn two different software Suites. This makes no sense
Absolutely! Check out my video on geospatial Python courses as they have some introductory concepts there. Also working on a video about that topic too.
They are pretty closely related and have a lot of overlap but I generally think of geomatics as the collection of data on the earth and geospatial analysis is the analysis of that data along with other data.
Most Open source GIS runs on windows, Linux, Mac. It runs on a PC or the Cloud, docker, serverless. Combined with Python, it's just better. To add a py package to Pro, you have to clone the conda env for each desktop, name it the same, terrible.
I was taught GIS on ArcGIS but haven't used it since 2010. I think it is a very common tool but you can see how it compares to skills and salaries in my most recent video!
So no those are definitely specialized parts of geospatial. The data engineering side is usually on the data that is produced from those fields but can apply to any field working with raw data that needs to be cleaned, transformed, and moved to other locations.
