Careers & Skills
TutorialThe Practical Data Analyst · CareersFive CTE Traps That Return the Wrong Answer Quietly
Five CTE traps, each measured on one 12-row SQLite table: a random value that ran once, a recursion with no end, a $235 filter-order gap, a table name stolen by its own CTE, and a UNION that ate a path.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Nov 10, 2026·10 min
TutorialThe Practical Data Analyst · CareersFive String Traps That Rewrite Your Totals. A 12-Row Table Lost $415 Before a Single Clean.
A raw join on city names matched 8 of 12 rows and lost $415 of $1,420. GROUP BY invented four extra cities. COUNT said 11 emails existed; only 10 were real. Five traps, all measured.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Nov 6, 2026·8 min
- TutorialThe Practical Data Analyst · Tutorial
Your Query Is Slow. EXPLAIN Told You Why: Five Plan Checks That Catch It Before Users Do
Five EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN checks on 100,000 SQLite rows: SCAN versus SEARCH, a covering index, a join plan, a temp sort, and a LIKE trap where the index did not rescue the query at all.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Oct 31, 2026·7 min
- TutorialThe Practical Data Analyst · Careers
Five Aggregation Traps That Rewrite Your Totals. I Measured Each One on Twelve Rows.
Five aggregation traps measured on one 12-row sales table in SQLite 3.45.1: integer division, averages of averages, COUNT(*) vs COUNT(column), the NULL group, and WHERE vs HAVING.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Oct 25, 2026·10 min
TutorialThe Practical Data Analyst · CareersFive Date Traps That Move Money Between Months: I Measured Each One
Five controlled date experiments on a tiny orders table: a BETWEEN filter cut March from $420 to $170, a timezone moved $70 into February, and SQLite and pandas disagreed by three days on one month of arithmetic.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Oct 21, 2026·10 min
TutorialThe Practical Data Analyst · CareersFive JOIN Traps That Quietly Rewrite Your Numbers. One Orders Table Reported $620, $1,240 and $2,040.
A 6-order table holding $620 in revenue produced totals of $1,240 and $2,040 after two ordinary joins, then lost $70 to a third. Five JOIN traps, each shown on real output, each with a fix.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Oct 16, 2026·7 min
TutorialCareers & Skills · TutorialMost Analytics Bugs Are Data Bugs. Five Checks That Catch Them Before the Meeting.
Five validation checks every analyst should run before trusting a table: duplicates, NULL key columns, out-of-range values, cross-field arithmetic, orphan references. Tested on a 2,010-row orders table with 50 planted defects; the checks flagged 51 rows, and the misses are as instructive as the catches.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Oct 11, 2026·8 min
TutorialCareers & Skills · TutorialWindow Functions Are SQL's Most Underused Feature. Five Patterns Cover Nearly Everything.
Five window-function patterns that cover most analytics SQL: dedupe with ROW_NUMBER, top-N per group with RANK, period comparisons with LAG, running totals with explicit frames, bucketing with NTILE. Every query ran and its output is shown; a 200,000-row timing test puts the window function at 0.46s against 5.92s for the equivalent self-join on 5,000 rows.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Oct 6, 2026·8 min
AnalysisThe Job Hunt, Quantified · CareersI Filed 49 Data Job Applications in Two Weeks. The Funnel Was the Hard Part.
49 filed applications, 27 distinct portals, 5 fast rejections. What my own September job ledger reveals about junior data hiring in fall 2026.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Oct 1, 2026·7 min
- AnalysisCareers · The Data Job Market
The Data Scientist Role Is Splitting Into Three Jobs. Here's Which One to Become.
The classic data-scientist bundle is unbundling into the analyst, the ML engineer, and the AI engineer. BLS still projects 34% growth, but the generalist entry seat is the one shrinking. Here is how to pick your one.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Sep 25, 2026·7 min
AnalysisCareers · AI ResearchOpenAI Uses 3.1 Agent-Workdays for Every Human Day. The Bottleneck Moved.
OpenAI reports 3.1 agent-workdays for every human research day. That does not mean 3.1× productivity, it means the scarce work has shifted toward judgment.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Sep 25, 2026·13 min
AnalysisCareers Analysis · Jobs OutlookData Science Is Growing 34.6%. The Entry Door Is Still Getting Narrower.
BLS projects data-scientist employment to grow 34.6% through 2035. That does not mean the first job is easier to get: AI is changing junior work and raising the value of judgment, verification and context.
Ibrahim Denis Fofanah·Sep 18, 2026·7 min