​Last week I shared how Matthew and I designed the role he wanted, instead of waiting for someone else to define it.

Our follow-up coaching call was the fun part, because he actually did something with it. He met with HR, walked them through why "Business Intelligence Analyst" didn’t match the scope of what he’s doing, and HR went to his manager unprompted.

The early signal is strong, his manager agrees, and they’re lining it up with the upcoming review cycle, which is exactly how these things tend to move inside a company.

Then we got into the next question that always shows up when your title and responsibility start to level up, "What skills do I need now that I didn’t need before?"

In Matthew's case, it was Snowflake. My take was simple, if your long-term goal is to lead a data function, you need to be able to speak intelligently about the backend, cost, use cases, tradeoffs, but you don’t need to be the deepest technical expert in the room.

So we talked about learning enough to lead, shadowing the person who already owns that work, and getting guidance from someone who lives in both worlds. I told him to reach out to my friend Pablo at Snowflake, someone who came up through Tableau and can recommend the right learning path without turning it into a second job.

The biggest shift in the conversation was how to turn all of this into a clean, fact-based compensation discussion. Instead of "I deserve more," we reframed it as "Here’s what this role looks like in the market, and here’s what it replaces."

Look up comparable roles on LinkedIn, study the job descriptions, and build a realistic salary band for your location. Then anchor toward the upper end, and give yourself room to negotiate.

The most useful reference point for Matthew was the consultant option his company explored, $110K for six months, plus the fact that consultant knowledge walks out the door when the contract ends.

If the business is asking you to absorb a meaningful chunk of that value internally, that’s part of your evidence.

And finally, we talked about preparing for the negotiation itself. Not hype, not emotion, just a calm, evidence-led conversation with a few clear anchors.

I pointed him to Never Split the Difference as a practical guide for how to handle these discussions without feeling like you’re "being pushy." Because the goal isn’t to win an argument, it’s to make it easy for leadership to say yes to something that’s already reasonable on paper.

My request from you. Hit reply and tell me about the role you want. Think 2-3 steps ahead of where you are. I respond to every email.

Andy

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, February 17, 2026 - 8pm GMT / 3pm ET

Data Modeling - The Secret to Scaling Tableau Without Slowing It Down

Speakers: Andy Kriebel & Kirk Munroe
Cost: FREE
Level: Intermediate

Tuesday, March 3, 2026 - 8pm GMT / 3pm ET

Before the Dashboard - Thinking Your Way Through a New Dataset

Speaker: Andy Kriebel
Cost: FREE
Level: FUNdamentals

🇩🇪 Essen, Germany
Tuesday, March 24, 2026 - 9:30AM - 1:30PM CET

In-Person Workshop: Build Better Dashboards and Demo Them With Confidence

Instructors: Andy Kriebel & Eva Murray
Cost: €497 €400
Level: Intermediate

Weekly Tips Roundup

I'm putting out one Tableau tip every day this year. That's 365 tips by the end of 2026.
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Some will be quick wins. Some will solve problems you've been stuck on for months. All of them will help you build better dashboards faster.
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Here's what I shared this week:

📌 Blue vs. Green → Link (plus webinar recording)
📌 Save Table Calcs → Link​
📌 10x Goals → Link​
📌 Disable Sorting → Link​
📌 Butterfly Charts → Link​
📌 Create Hierarchies Shortcut → Link​

Which of these do you find most useful?