Let’s say you have 20000 tables in total for a company. They are in 10 different databases. You have no overview over the data and no comments. You don’t have a starting point for where information x are.

Welcome to my reality.

Would I love a data architect and a domain expert in my team? Yeah.

Will I run around booking meetings with everyone that even hints at working with data like a headless hen? Yeah.

Is this the normal procedure for Data Scientists in big and old companies? More so than I would like.

Oh! And I forgot that the security department will constantly deny your access to data you need (until you force their hand).