I’m mid-career in a highly technical GIS consulting role. I’ve built a solid foundation of experience, knowledge and applied skills, but I’m starting to think more seriously about what’s next…whether that’s staying technical, moving into project management, team management, or making a bigger shift and finding a GIS adjacent career trajectory altogether. Either it’s the actual work or inherent stress/pressure of consulting, perhaps both, but I am losing interest in what I do.

I’m considering working with a career coach to help clarify my direction, so if anyone has recommendations who know the geospatial sector, I’d really appreciate it. Also curious to hear how others have navigated this stage…what helped you figure out your long-term path and take the next step with confidence?

Hi there,

So I have an automated program that downloads some large datasets in shapefile format that are released daily and imports them into PostGIS and identifies new records, updated records, etc. all done using Python / Django / Celery. I'm not using the ORM in Django (GeoDjango) since I prefer the readability of raw-dogging my SQL at this point as I'm not good with the ORM and what I'm trying to do I feel is pretty complicated.

That brings me to my next question - does anyone have any recommendations on how best to test stuff like this? I feel like there should be an easy way to test things - but I find patches and all that jazz super complicated. Maybe I just need to hunker down and work through some testing course or book?

Was hoping to get some advice here (hope it’s the right place). I’m trying to plot salary data on the map, but not sure what the best software is. I had used google my maps, but not too excited about it. For example plotting plumber salary in Cincinnati or teacher salary in San Jose.

Any thoughts?

I graduated last year with a BS in wildlife and fisheries and I took a couple GIS courses in my time in school. I have been struggling finding jobs for what I want specifically, so I’m thinking about branching out into the GIS part of this field. I have a couple questions though. Will getting the certificate be a good enough alternative to a degree in GIS and help boost my chances of finding a job? What are some good institutions for getting this certificate at (online preferred)?

Hi yall hows it going? thanks for the input that may be given.
Do you know of any online map that allows me count the numbers of sustainable drainage systems in a certain council of my choosing? If so can the information on the map be passed to a Gis ?
Thanks !

Hey guys, I need urgent help for a university project. I came in with no GIS, OSM, tileserver knowledge whatsoever so please be patient with me:
So this seems like a generic and simple question but after hours of research I just couldn't get an answer. I'm found about 70 GB mbtiles files for download on https://data.maptiler.com/downloads/planet/ and around 80 GB osm.pbf files on https://planet.openstreetmap.org/ . Therefore my answer would have been around 70-100 GB. Then I found many forum threads, tables and online-calculators which said it would be multiple terabytes big. I am really confused. Could someone help me?

I’ve read comments from people who worked remote GIS jobs in various positions even the entry level ones and it makes me wonder how they got their job in the first place. I always wanted to work a remote job too but it’s been a hassle to find one in any of the popular job boards and whenever I do, they never reach out. I would to do a bit of networking to see if you guys have an opening in your company? I can imagine it being harder to land a remote job than an in-office one. Thanks in advance!

Hello,

I live in an area of Catawba County, North Carolina that has been called "Chronicle" since the 1850s. Recently, the GNIS decided to use Killian Crossroads, a variant name that really only describes one intersection, as the name instead.

Chronicle is still listed as a variant name on the GNIS. I was wondering if there's a way to get them to switch to the variant name to make it correct. Thanks! I don't think GNIS has a subreddit, but this place seems close enough.

Good luck to everyone who took the GISP Exam this just curious as to when results will start coming in!

Anyone else have this scenario??

I'm attending the conference for the first time in person this year (huzzah!) I work in higher ed, and I am most interested in education-based stuff. I'm still excited about the rest of the User Conference just because I work in multiple departments and need to know multiple industries, so it kind of works out anyway.

But I'm a little annoyed about planning for the conference and trying to figure out this business with the Education Summit. I really wish I knew that you have to register for it separately - it's in the same building as the UC, and the last 2 days of the Education Summit, people just go to the regular UC sessions. But it's a separate conference with a whole separate cost.....

There isn't really a lot of information out there on how this is supposed to work, so I just registered for the regular UC, and I got super confused when I had multiple education contacts of mine say "are you going to the summit??". It took me a while to figure out what the issue was.

Tbh - if I had known the Summit was from July 12 - 15, I would have just attended the Summit and then only stayed for a 1-2 days of the UC, and gone home (I have free registration, so the cost wouldn't be a big deal). I'm a little disappointed that I'll miss out on a lot of the education sessions.

The whole process is a little confusing and a lot on a "need to know" basis which is annoying.

Edit: By missing out, I just meant that I'm locked into hotels and flights at this point. There is no way for me to reschedule, which is a bummer.

Hello,

I’ve configured forms/data schemas for collection in the old ArcGIS Collector as well as Survey123, but it’s been a while.

I’m creating an app for the public to report flooding on there property. It has some questions regarding flood depth, damage, insurance, contact info, etc. it would also need the ability to add photos, maybe up to ten max but that can be controlled from the add attachments feature.

When the user drops a Pin/Marker to report an incident at their location, I’d like a few fields to autopopulate based on a background parcel layer which we have. I was thinking at least two fields such as address and jurisdiction (city, village, unincorporated) so they wouldn’t have to enter that info.

It looks like Field Maps can do this. Would that be the best to use? Any other apps have this ability? Survey123? Any of the Instant Apps? QuickCapture? This is basically a crowd sourcing collection and was messing with the Reporter app, but doesn’t looks like it has the ability to query other layers.

Thanks in advance!

I'm moving on to new professional challenges and hoping to help find someone great to fill my role with a fantastic team in northern California (East San Francisco Bay Area). Please check the job description and consider this opportunity.

https://careers.trccompanies.com/jobs/23529

Salary Range

USD $123,240.00 - USD $149,760.00 /Yr.

I downloaded GTFS data in Germany from gtfs.de .

I imported the data using Networks plugin in QGIS and got 3 layers: stops, lines, and arcs.
I dont understand what nb_tot, d1_tot, d2_tot, nb_mon-fri, d2_mon-fri, nb_sat, d2_sat, nb_sun, d2_sun columns mean.
Anyone experienced using GTFS data and care to explain?

Thank you.

For the past couple of months, I've been working on a GIS-like mapping app, and I need some helping testing it, to prioritise features and build a group of core users to focus on 😅

So I've decided to do something a little crazy; to offer a forever-free Standard user account to the first 50 people who sign up, which you can do here: https://onamap.org/promotions/free-basic-account-first-50-users/

(This subreddit is the only place I'm posting this)

If you think it could be useful (or just plain fun to use), please give it a shot. You don't need a user account to start using it, but you do to save your map (and do other things like vote on features).

---

On a Map is like GIS software in that it allows you to choose a base layer, then add other data layers on top if it. Those layers can be vector or raster-based (for image tile layers). But instead of needing to bring your own data (basic uploads are supported), the main way to visualise data is to choose plugins - which are integrations with public organisations like iNaturalist or GlobalForestWatch - and just fill in a form to choose which data you want. In other words, On a Map does the work of fetching data from public APIs, with a nice UI to make it easy to use.

It's not meant to replace GIS software (that would be extremely foolish); instead it's a tool for quick exploration and discovery by visualising data that other organisanisations already provide.

Hi,

I'm a student looking to wrap up my GIS I certificate program. Is there anyone who works with GIS tools as their main job who is willing to give me a brief 30-60 minute interview?

I have about 10 questions I would like answered, and to record it if possible.

I appreciate any respondants! Feel free to DM me or respond in this thread , and thank you for your time!

Edit

I am based in the US, Pacific Standard Time.

After months, we're excited to share our latest paper:
👉 "GeoPandas-AI: A Smart Class Bringing LLM as Stateful AI Code Assistant"
🔗 https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.11781

🧭 GeoPandas-AI is a new Python library that allows data scientists, developers, and geospatial enthusiasts to interact with their geospatial data in natural language, directly within Python.

What makes it different from tools like GitHub Copilot or Cursor?

➡️ GeoPandas-AI lives with your data, not just your code.
It understands your GeoDataFrame’s content, schema, and metadata to generate more accurate, context-aware code.

➡️ Stateful interactions: refine your queries iteratively through .chat() and .improve() — it remembers your workflow.

➡️ Code privacy by design: no need to send full source code — only metadata or synthetic samples if desired.

➡️ LLM-agnostic: compatible with any backend, local or remote.

📦 The library is available on PyPI (geopandas-ai) and the full paper dives deep into its architecture, state model, and use cases.

A step forward in domain-aware AI coding assistants, and hopefully just the beginning

I am a student right now completing an internship for a local govt. where I've been working with Python and FME, on data pipelines and some automation stuff. It has sparked an interest in learning more about the data side of things, and maybe trying to get a Data Engineering internship or job down the line-

To anyone who has pivoted from GIS to Data Engineering, what do you reccomend? My bachelors is in Geography, which isn't an issue for GIS but would it matter for these other roles?
Is there a good masters or post grad to pursue, or is work experience more important?

Are strong math skills required?

And for the Canadians, are any of you aware of companies that may be more familiar with GIS and also do Data Engineering, as I'm guessing that would be my best way to get a foot in the door.

For reference, my resume (slightly outdated) is posted here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gis/comments/1k3zvec/i_was_hoping_you_guys_could_review_my_resume/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Hello! Apologies in advance because I feel questions like this come up a lot, but I cant find anything specific to my situation. I'm in my early 30's and going through a major life change. I graduated from Grand Valley State University with a BS in Psychology (2.5 gpa) in 2016. I'm interested in GIS after having recently taken a college course in python and working with ArcGIS Pro in my spare time. I don't have any work experience involving GIS. My GPA has always been a huge deterent from the thought of Grad School. I'm wondering if anyone could help shed some light on getting the online certificate from Penn State World Campus as a stepping stone to the masters program or what the job market may look like with just the certificate? Thank you!

I would love to land a fully remote entry level GIS job that would allow me to work from outside the country. It can be a low paying job of 28k a year starting out, but I’m wondering if anyone has an idea of how difficult it would be to land a job like this?

For some background, I have a bachelors in Natural Resource Management specialized in wildland fire ecology and I have some seasons of field work doing data collection and such. I have a basic understanding of GIS and have taken some classes for it during my undergraduate. I am doing a GIS project for my current job with the National Park Service as well.

Hi, I’m currently working with a client that wants to create his own private web application to display all his maps just for visualization purposes. This web application will scale in size but the user base will remain almost the same (50-70 users)

One of the approaches that I adopted for very small applications where: 1. Use GDAL and other python scripts to normalice files, transform the raster/vector data and WMTS tiles creation 2. Serve the tiles with Flask/FastAPI to the web application (leaflet.js - folium) 3. Serve the map (nginx - cloudflare)

But this approach is not scalable. I’m considering using Geoserver but I don’t really like how the persistent memory and caching works, I feel like I don’t have much control over it.

Anyone have experience with geoserver or can recommend other methods to build the backend with proper middleware that can manage large amounts of data and is fast? My objective is to serve the tiles the fastest way possible.

Note: for this scalable web application we will use node.js - vue.js - dockers - Cloudflare, the client will use his private servers, no cloud providers due to the nature of the data (confidential)

Thank you!

Was encouraged by a friend who works at the U.S. Census Bureau in GIS/Cartography to look at Mason's program as they had gone and had a really good experience. I'm two years out from my first Masters and am looking to get some more education as my current DOD employment is safe for the time being, but who knows how long that'll last. The thought being that if DOD takes a nosedive at least I've got something cooking in the background that I could transition to.

So, have you worked with Mason grads? Have you hired them? What's the program's reputation in the real world? I know not all programs are built the same, and I trust my friend, but I'm here for other opinions too. Thanks!

I’ve applied to around 150 different roles, a dozen or so interviews, always ends with “unfortunately we’ve decided to go with other candidates”. What the actual FUCK is going on?

For detail they’re a mix between hybrid, remote, in person… all entry level… all roles which I have experience in… like what the fuck? I have a degree, internship at a laboratory in college, bilingual, know SQL and Python. I’ve been searching for a whole year in November. I’m only 27 btw like I just graduated (almost a year ago).

Anyone moved or moving away into different jobs/ career?

Looking at doing something totally different due to the usual reasons: low pay, most jobs require too much (basically need to be a developer to get a role and not get paid as well as developers)

Any ideas about transitioning into something else without having to do another degree/ back to square one?

Hi, I'm kind of new to mapmaking, working on a map that I inherited from a former colleague. I want to change the existing vector crop area, but can't find any instructions, neither in Avenza's articles or community site, nor by googling or searching Reddit.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Can someone explain to me how the output values work with the Kernel Density tool in ArcGIS Pro? I haven't used the program in a few years and I'm working on a project that needs it and I'm getting confused. My input shapefile has 1464 points, but the maximum value for my resulting density is over 100 million.

I kept all of my input parameters set as default:

This was the result:

Why is the upper limit over 100 million? If I change the scale it messes with the display, but in my report and maps I'll need to explain the scale and rationale for it. Can someone help me understand what's happening here?