Meet Matthew Mike | Data Analyst & Content Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Matthew Mike and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Matthew, is there something you can share with us that those outside of the industry might not be aware of?
Data analytics is surprisingly approachable. Honestly, I always thought I was too dumb to code. I consistently performed poorly in math and science in school so I thought coding was only for “smart” people. To my surprise, it made sense once I jumped into it. A lot of coding languages are logic-based rather than being mathematical or theory-based. You arrange the parts of the script or query to do the calculations for you. It’s pretty amazing and writing code for the first time was a thrilling experience for me.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I work as a Data Analyst, but I actually graduated college with an English degree. I spent a few years in teaching and then in administration for an Arizona charter school. When I knew that isn’t where I wanted to be long-term, I went into the corporate world doing business operations. This is where I got my foundation in technical tools which eventually inspired the desire to broaden my tech stack with tools outside my scope of practice at the time. I discovered the online data community via LinkedIn and the rest is history.

I started creating content on LinkedIn while I was documenting my journey into data analytics, completely self taught through online courses. Eventually I began creating content targeted towards non-technical professionals who want to begin a career in data analytics.

One of my favorite thing about this career path is that you typically don’t need to go back to school for a formal degree to break into the field. I’ve seen tons of people, myself included, who developed the skills they needed through online courses, of which there are many. I spent a few hundred dollars on courses as opposed to $50K+ if I had gone back to school. With that few hundred, I was able to significantly increase my earning potential and start a new career that I love.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well the Grand Canyon is a must. We’d also travel upstate to Sedona and Flagstaff while we’re at it. If they’re a hiker, I’d take them to Humphrey’s Peak in Flagstaff or Payson which is one of my personal favorite areas.

For food, I would most definitely take them to Maple and Ash in Old Town Scottsdale. We’d also check out Bourbon and Bones and some local breweries like Fate, The Beer Research Institute, and Wilderness Brewing Co.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
3 shoutouts. The first and second are my wife and daughter. Providing more for them is what inspired me to make a career change and start my own business. They are my primary motivation for everything.

The third is the LinkedIn data community. LinkedIn is home to an incredibly supportive, vocal, and warm community of data professionals. The data community is not quite like any other professional online community I’ve seen. They’ve all supported me in many ways and I’ve made many friends through creating content on that platform.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewmike/

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@MattMike?si=iqK6cZUE1WDOZJy0