Jake Magdich

---

Senior data analyst with a passion for process automation, learning new programming methods, and exchanging knowledge with others.

MORE

My career path has been a bit unorthodox to say the least, but it led me to discover my passion for analytics and process automation. I graduated from Lake Erie College with a double major in chemistry and math in 2010 and landed a job as a process development technician at a solar panel manufacturer shortly afterward. From 2010-2018 I worked in multiple positions within the manufacturing and development engineering organizations. My first foray into analytics came through helping to establish control limits for laser processing equipment by creating solar panel measurement programs to collect and analyze laser scribe positioning in multiple positions across the panel(s). Throughout my time there I always found myself more interested in working with the measurement data collected from the equipment rather than the equipment itself, which made me seriously consider shifting career paths.

After deciding it was time for a change I went back to school for a year, completing formal online analytics courses at Maryville University (mainly SQL with some Python) in the evening when I'd get home from work. Luckily that led me to my 1st analyst role at Progressive Insurance in 2018. Since then, I've worked in the auto product organization, treasury analysis, and my current role as a senior data analyst on our underwriting R&D team. My 1st role as a product analyst is where I discovered my love for automating processes, creating monthly reporting templates and dashboards using programs like SQL, Excel PowerQuery, and VBA. From there I became an analyst in treasury analysis. This is where my Alteryx addiction began! I was able to convert multiple processes from MS Access to Alteryx and learned a lot about the parsing capabilities of Alteryx. This made me dig deeper into the different tools and functions designer offers, which led to more parsing and data consolidation workflows being built.

I've since taken my love of all things Alteryx to R&D, where I'm helping to implement a new underwriting process as the lead analyst on the project. I've been spending a good amount of time building out standard queries and reporting lately in addition to a few side projects that have allowed me to increase my macro skills. I really enjoy brainstorming with others on how to improve processes and save people time on their day-to-day tasks through workflow automation. I firmly believe that the best results come from working together as a team and openly communicating with one another. You learn a lot faster that way too!

Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my wife (who also works at Progressive) and chasing our 4 year old son around. I still like playing soccer (played for Lake Erie) in the winter and play golf in the summer. I also enjoy reading different fiction and non-fiction books (my favorite fiction I read recently is Ubik).