The Rollercoaster Story of a Microsoft BI Legend

As part of Happy Techies' ongoing series of interviews with leaders in the Microsoft technology sector, we caught up with Avi Singh, one of the most recognizable names in the Microsoft tech ecosystem.

Avi Singh is a Microsoft expert specializing in Power BI. Although he now works as a consultant and helps fellow techies learn more about one of Microsoft's most impactful products, Singh's story spans several companies, dozens of positions, and an unforgettable career trajectory that helped him become one of the leading industry experts on Power BI.

To most techies, the story of Avi Singh should seem very familiar.

Avi, grew up in India, where societal norms and the education system placed immense pressure on students to pursue prestigious careers. "It wasn’t so much my dad," Avi clarified with a smile. "He was actually really chill and supportive of whatever path we chose. But the system and society around us had this 'Doctor or Engineer or Bust!' mentality."

This relentless societal pressure eventually took a toll on Avi. Struggling to meet these rigid expectations, he experienced a "nervous breakdown" and began to lose interest in traditional studies. During this time period, Singh developed an interest in technology. In our interview, he joked that he "never made it to engineering school." He graduated university with a degree in computer science and moved to the United States during a pivotal time in technology history - the dot com bubble.

"Goofing Off" in the Dot Com Bubble

Like many young technology professionals, Avi's journey toward data analytics wasn't straightforward. He began at Rational, an all-but-forgotten tech company that dominated the market in the earliest days of the dot com bubble. He originally worked with configuration management and source control.

Singh's manager eventually noticed that Avi seemed to "goof off quite a bit." To help motivate Avi, the manager pulled him into reporting. This was his first taste of data analytics - and Avi was hooked.

 n the beginning, Avi worked primarily with Microsoft Excel. But when he was exposed to Power BI, Avi explained, it changed everything. He was blown away with the realization of just how much this new Microsoft product was capable of doing. As the data sets Avi worked with got bigger, so did the need for complex data processing - and Power BI was the way to do this.

"The Joy Just Wasn't There"

All techies know about the rollercoaster that is the technology job market, and Avi told us all about the strange ride that led him to his current position as a Power BI consultant. To really understand his story, we found it helpful to remember how his career began.

Avi grew up with the dream of becoming a doctor, lawyer, or an engineer. When the pressure of traditional schooling became too much, he pivoted into tech. But even once he had a position as a data analyst, the ever-evolving nature of the early 2000s technology scene threw yet another curveball at him.

And like all great techies, Avi was never resistant to changes in available technology. We asked Avi what drew him to Power BI, and his answer is something that we feel will resonate with nearly every passionate techie on the scene - even today.

What drew Avi Singh to the technology that he'd study and apply for decades to come? One word: joy. "In my 15+ years of corporate life," Avi said, "the joy just wasn't there." He followed the "drag of life" for many years - the Monday Blues, a midweek Hump Day, and, of course, the "TGIF" vibes of finishing a week and having some time to himself.

With Power BI, though, he found the joy. And it was this joy that pushed Avi Singh toward the bold choice that would come to define his career as a techie.

"Don't Do What I Did"

During our interview, Avi was quick to point out that, although his story has a happy ending, it certainly didn't feel that way for many years. Once he realized that he was tired of the endless slog of corporate life, he quit. For months, he burned through his savings as he tried to stake his claim in a saturated market of technology consultants.

Avi was kind enough to share with us one of the most difficult moments in his life, which happened during this period. He was at a grocery store buying eggs and milk and, "for the first time in [his] life, his card didn't work." He felt like a failure and feared that he wouldn't be able to provide for his family.

Luckily, Avi said with a smile, he was wrong about that. Leaving his job, his health insurance, and the steady paycheck behind ended up being the

"best decision [he] had ever made."

Avi Singh's story has a happy ending. He is now one of the most respected Power BI consultants in the industry, and he uses his sense of joy and wonder at his favorite data analytics tool to teach thousands of aspiring techies.

But if he could do it all again, Avi said that he'd do things a bit differently.

"Dreams Alone Do Not Pay the Bills"

Avi ended our interview with some fantastic advice for techies who want to escape the slog of corporate life to strike out on their own. His words of wisdom? Have a plan. For techies who try to work independently, planning and luck are essential.

Singh explained that although things worked out for him in the end, most people are better off working a full-time job while trying to build their dream business on the side. Especially in the tech industry, we're always inundated with stories of bold, courageous techies who risked everything for their dreams. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg… the list goes on.

But these examples are the exception - not the rule. While Zuckerberg made billions after leaving Harvard to work on Facebook, there are thousands of other young innovators who left their careers behind and ended up broke and no closer to fame and riches.

"You can avoid all that by building something slowly over time," Avi said.

We tend to agree. For every Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs, there are tens of thousands of brilliant techies who are working, slowly but surely, to build the future of Microsoft technologies.

Avi's advice is clear. Before you take a leap of faith, make sure that you still have a place to land.