At my last meetup someone asked the question "What's the best path to be a great data engineer?" My journey is a more traditional path than many, but required a lot of independent learning that anyone could have done. I would like to share a more complete response of my experience and what I learned in hopes it helps others with the question of how to go from where they are to being a data engineer. I will cover this topic in two parts. Part 1 (this post) is about what set the stage for data engineering: my path to get into the industry as a Business Intelligence Consultant.