You’re good at the job. You know the tools, you know the models, you know SQL better than almost anyone on the team.
At some point, usually around senior, the rules change. Being the best engineer on the team stops being enough.
You get judged on three things nobody hired you for:
Explaining your work to a VP
Pushing back on a vague request without sounding difficult
Making your results visible before review season comes around
The usual advice is to get better at the tech and wait for someone to make you a lead, and both halves of that are bullshit.
What’s free and what you pay for
Each free piece is complete, with the whole argument and an example from my own job as a leader and coach, and you can use it without ever paying me.
What you pay for is the version you’d otherwise build yourself, which I’ve already built and used with the data professionals I coach.
A paid subscription gets you:
My digital twin, on the annual plan. More on it below.
The Premium Content Library, with the business-case template, the scoping doc and the estimate note already built in it.
The First 90 Days Field Kit, where the Power Map shows who decides, who influences and who only asked.
My course Design Your Promotion and Get Paid at the Right Number, and the Promotion OS behind it.
Show & Tell, live once a month, where your case can be the one I work through. Every session is recorded.
Every paid piece, each with a script, template, example or decision record ready to use.
My twin
My digital twin is an AI assistant that answers the way I would. It runs as an MCP server, and you only get it on the annual plan.
Ask it what you’d ask me the night before a meeting, like how to say “not now” to a fourth urgent request, or what goes in a pre-read.
One real example:
It uses more em dashes than I ever would, and the piece it links at the end is one of mine.
Subscribe for the year and ask it your own question.
Who this isn’t for
It’s the wrong subscription if you want the next dbt or Spark tutorial, since I don’t write those, or if you already manage people and want a management newsletter.
If you’re in your first couple of years in data, nothing here is written for you yet.
Common questions
I’m not a manager yet. Is this still for me?
Most members aren’t. They’re experienced professionals and leads who want more ownership, visibility, scope, and the compensation that comes with them. The skills here apply at every level above junior.
How often does it arrive?
Two pieces a week. Some are free, some are for paid subscribers, and 7,500+ people get them.
Why Data Gibberish over other resources?
Most content for data professionals stops at the technical layer. Here I focus on what comes after that:
How to make your work visible
How to influence decisions
How to grow without moving into pure management
There isn’t much else that covers this specifically for data people.
Is it worth it?
A year of using my digital twin costs less than one coaching package with me, and everything else on the list comes with it.
Can my company pay for it?
It counts as a learning resource, and I’ve already written the email that asks your manager to pay for it. If 3 or more of you want it, there’s a team price per seat, and it’s on the subscribe page.
Can I cancel?
Whenever you like. Switch renewal off in your Substack account and you keep access to the end of the period you paid for. There’s no refund.
What I can show you
I’ve run the data due diligence on four M&A deals and delivered the data platform behind a $73M Series C. The move from data engineer to head of data engineering is one I’ve made myself, fast, with a 40% salary increase.
Here’s what readers say.
Subscribe for the year
If you want my read on the message you’re dreading this week, subscribe for the year and ask the twin.