[jboggan]

It's digital Charlie Work [0], that's why.

I really enjoy that kind of work but it is difficult to articulate your business value in that environment. The best thing is working closely with a data scientist/front-end dev who can deliver products to the analysts and executives that need the data and make sure that you get the credit for enabling new streams of data. But most of the time you are putting out someone else's dumpster fire.

One advantage of data engineering: unlike front-end work, there are few non-technical people who will have an opinion on how you are doing things and burden you with bikeshedding.

[0] - http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/its-always-sunny-philadelphia-c...