this dude became a data analyst (no prior experience)

October 28, 2026

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Vivek Poovathoor spent six years as an electrical engineer in a windowless lab at Southwest Research Institute. The work paid well, but he found it fairly boring.

He wanted to use his math and programming skills differently. So he found Avery's YouTube channel, listened to every single episode of this podcast, and then sat on it for six months.

Finally, in September 2024, he joined the Accelerator. Seven months later he landed a senior financial analyst role in healthcare revenue — fully remote, higher pay than engineering, in an industry he'd never touched.

Here's what he did that you should steal 👇

He changed his job title on LinkedIn

Vivek's old LinkedIn said "Research Engineer" at Southwest Research Institute.

One time a hiring manager rejected him for a data analyst role because they thought he was "too technical." The title biased them. They saw engineer-y language and assumed he couldn't talk to clients.

So he changed it to "Engineering Analyst."

Same job. Same bullets. Different title.

After that, conversations shifted. Instead of "you're probably too technical," it became "oh, you have analytics experience — tell me about these skills."

It's not the only thing that matters, but it's a contributing factor. Your title and bullets shape what people think you do. If your current role involves any amount of data work, rewrite the title to reflect that.

He hired himself as a data analyst

Vivek and his sister ran a small e-commerce business selling products online. Nothing huge. Moderate success.

But to keep it running, he had to know his numbers: unit economics, cost of goods sold, gross margin, contribution margin, ROAS. He built spreadsheets to track margins whenever they ordered new material. He looked at Shopify sales data and social media analytics.

That's data analyst work. So he put it on his resume.

Later, he reached out to a doctor friend he met at a 5K. The guy was starting a venture to help diabetics and needed someone to show patient success metrics in a dashboard.

Vivek said yes, learned Postgres, picked up a new dashboarding tool, delivered two projects, and put it on LinkedIn as contract work.

The doctor got busy and the gig ended. But Vivek posted it to his LinkedIn experience anyway.

That post went public. A hiring manager saw it a year later and reached out.

You can do this too. You don't need a formal LLC. You don't need to be profitable. If you analyze your own finances, you're doing data work. If you help a friend track something, that's experience.

Just make sure you can talk about it in an interview and show something in your portfolio. Don't make it up. But don't wait for permission either.

He posted on LinkedIn for six months before it paid off

Vivek's LinkedIn was a ghost town at first. He posted projects. He wrote about what he was learning. Nothing went viral.

But his profile analytics started going up. Strangers started reacting to his posts. It gave him credibility in the space.

Then in February 2025, something weird happened.

A hiring manager he'd met at a data meetup a year earlier — someone who'd ghosted his follow-up message — suddenly replied.

Not to the original message. To a LinkedIn notification.

Vivek had just closed out his contract position with the doctor, and LinkedIn auto-posted it to his network. The hiring manager saw the update and messaged: "Hey, are you still open for a job?"

Vivek had been posting consistently for six months by that point. His portfolio was ready. His LinkedIn was optimized. When the hiring manager clicked through, everything was already there.

They brought him in for interviews. The team asked some SQL questions, some Python questions, some healthcare revenue basics. But mostly they wanted to know about team chemistry and how he'd handle mentoring.

A few weeks later, they offered him the senior role.

He didn't need a thousand impressions. He needed the right one.