Patrick Noonan

My name is Patrick and I’m a data analytics expert with over 10 years of international work experience across a diverse range of companies and industries.

I'm currently a Senior Data Analyst at Primary.Health - a startup focusing on COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination software solutions at scale. My role includes aspects of Data Engineering, model building, data transformation, Looker instance administration, query optimization and dashboard creation - never a dull moment!

In addition to my day job, I’m passionate about teaching, communicating and mentorship. I have over a year of experience mentoring aspiring data professionals and I've found it intensely rewarding. I genuinely love explaining things, giving advice, and helping people reach that ‘ah ha’ moment when they finally understand a concept. I consider myself patient and empathetic; I always strive to put myself in the students shoes to understand their goals and strategize a way to best serve them.

My philosophy is ‘learn by building something that you care about’. I’ve taught myself several technologies by creating data projects related to my interests: check out my Medium page for examples: https://medium.com/@datachico

When I'm away from the computer screen I can be found cycling on one of my 3 bikes, waking up early before the sun rises to take photos with my tripod and camera or cooking a new vegan recipe.

Note: I’m born and raised in California, but I'm currently based in Spain on GMT+1 time zone. Keep the time difference in mind when considering if it's a good fit.

### Career
My career trajectory has been rather non-traditional. I studied Microbiology and found my way into the Data and Tech world by taking a temporary position in online advertising. This is when I discovered excel, data automation and scripting languages. I loved the challenge of automating manual processes and organizing data - it was my calling! Since then, I've worked in a wide variety of data-focused roles; learning and teaching myself as I encounter problems, challenges and products to build. My self-education trajectory has been a combination of tutorials, trial and error, collaboration with co-workers and personal data projects.

I took a mid-career sabbatical to move to Spain and teach English. I needed to take a break from office life and explore other ways of living. It has been a wonderful experience to view the world in a different way, learn a new language and grow personally by leaving my comfort zone. After a few years of immersing myself in a foreign country, it was time to return to my first love: data. I re-entered the workforce by producing several personal data projects which quenched my appetite for data problem solving, refreshed my skills and enhanced my portfolio in preparation to return to work.

My professional career has included:
* Wearer of many hats (PM, Data Analyst, Engineer) @ 3 Startups in the Health/Finance space
* 3 Data roles @ Pandora helping to wrangle/analyze billions of rows of listener data
* Freelance Data projects
* Data Analytics Mentorship

My Non-Traditional career:
* English teaching and business consulting in Spain
* Translation gigs (live and written)
* Airbnb Experience Operator (Bike tours and Photography classes)

### What I expect from mentees
I'm looking for mentees that have a passion for data analytics with a self-starter attitude. Your goal should be to break into the industry as a Data Analyst. Tech skills preferred: basic SQL, Python and excel. You will use these skills to develop a personal project that you are excited about. The best way to learn is to build something. You should have clearly defined expectations and goals for completing this fellowship. I'm open to taking recent grads or seasoned vets who are changing careers.

### What I can help you with
* Personal Projects: Brainstorming of topics, technical feedback and code review.
* Interview prep and job search advice: Improve resume, LinkedIn and Github profiles. Mock interviews.
* Industry insights: Examples of real life problems, projects and challenges.
* Productivity and Coaching: Habits, routines and hacks to optimize your data analytics journey.
* Networking: Tips and tricks to expand your network.

If you think it might be a good fit, don't hesitate to send me a message - I look forward to hearing from you!