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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Careers in GIS (Geographic Information Systems)
 
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mega dy
Dec 6, 2003

 I just found this thread but wanted to offer some support. I've worked in GIS for about 10 years, starting as a cartographer/analyst role and moving up to designing and building large federal enterprise GIS solutions, mostly around spatial data management and integration.

Happy to help if anyone has any questions!

One pro tip: if you got data, get FME. The general desktop GIS software solutions like ArcGIS and QGIS are actually pretty weak when it comes to complex data stuff. FME lets you do amazing things with all kinds of datasets very quickly and easily.

mega dy fucked around with this message at 15:58 on May 22, 2017

* # ¿ May 22, 2017 15:56
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mega dy
Dec 6, 2003

REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:

So is what you do now a lot more code writing and the like? I still haven't decided if I should take the plunge on this.
I only write code in a pinch, not as a major part of my job, and I'm not very good at it. I have kind of a hybrid role doing two major things:

1) Architecture - understanding how various components of an enterprise GIS fit together (GIS servers, databases/data sources, web services, applications) and how users interact with them
2) Data Analysis/Integration - taking a bunch of datasets and figuring out how to bounce them off of each other to answer complex questions

It's a pretty good gig. If you don't want to be a developer, there's a lot of need for people who know their way around the systems and data in general. Data integration/analysis/management in particular is a huuugely growing field.

mega dy fucked around with this message at 17:09 on May 25, 2017

* # ¿ May 25, 2017 17:07
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mega dy
Dec 6, 2003

Ramrod Hotshot posted:

I would absolutely focus on wetlands and take some GIS classes on the side. GIS was never meant to be a field of study in and of itself - rather it's a tool for things like studying wetlands.
Yeah I would put it this way: if you are good at/interested in basically an IT job with geographic components, then maybe consider a purely GIS career (though it is not true that you need to code or do database work to do so).

If you are interested more in actual geography, you don't need to go crazy with GIS, but some intermediate skills with major desktop GIS software and a basic understanding of data formats will look great on a resume and will enable you to more easily navigate the data and technology around geography.

* # ¿ May 29, 2017 15:06
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Careers in GIS (Geographic Information Systems)