More than the printed sheet
A day in the work
Data work runs on deadlines more than on meetings. A request comes in writing, in a ticket or a message from a manager: why did sign-ups fall in March? You get the data out with SQL, clean it, check it, and send back a chart, a dashboard or a short note with what it means. Microsoft’s description of a Power BI analyst fits most of these jobs: you work closely with the business people to find out what they need, and with data engineers to get the data, then you prepare it, model it, and show it so that others can find answers for themselves.
The time difference can help. A report a manager in London wants at 9 am is due at 1:45 pm in Nepal in the British summer (2:45 pm in winter), so you can work through your morning and send it before their day begins. For a client in New York the report is ready while they sleep: their 9 am is 6:45 pm or 7:45 pm in Nepal. The meetings are fewer than a developer’s, but harder: a weekly call where you explain what the numbers say to people who didn’t see the work, and answer “but why?” on the spot.
Much of the week is checking. Of the courses in Google’s certificate, a whole one is called “Process Data from Dirty to Clean”: finding the duplicates, the blanks, and the dates written three ways before anything is counted. Note each step, so you can show how you got any number.
The pay, worked through
Small firms abroad often want one thing kept up to date, a monthly dashboard or report. There is no reliable figure for what this pays, so take US$400 a month only to show the arithmetic, with the client paying through Payoneer.
1. The client pays by US bank debit (ACH). Payoneer takes 1%, US$4, and US$396 reaches your Payoneer account. By card, it would take up to 3.99% plus US$0.49.
2. You withdraw to your bank in Nepal. Payoneer’s price list doesn’t name Nepal among the countries it pays out to in local currency, so it changes the money, for 1.2–4%; check the fee in your account. At 1.2% it takes US$4.75, leaving US$391.25; at 4%, US$15.84, leaving US$380.16.
3. In rupees, at about Nepal Rastra Bank’s buying rate on 12 October 2026, Rs 154.48 to the dollar (the rate used is Payoneer’s own): Rs 60,440 or Rs 58,727.
4. The bank keeps 5% advance tax as the money comes in (Republica, 2026): you receive Rs 57,418 or Rs 55,791.
5. One fee more: Payoneer charges US$29.95 a year to an account that receives less than US$6,000 in any 12 months. US$400 a month is US$4,800 a year, so it applies: about US$2.50, or Rs 386, a month.
So of every US$400, between about 3% and 6% goes in fees before the tax. Two such clients would take you past US$6,000 a year and end the yearly fee. A bank transfer can cost less on large payments, but on a small one it can cost more: each intermediary bank on the way may take US$10–30 (Grey), and on US$400 one such fee is 2.5–7.5%. Whatever the route, test it with a small payment first.
Nepalis doing it
Data work for clients abroad is already done in Nepal by companies, and they are a good first job. Cotiviti Nepal, set up in 2004, does risk assessment and decision analytics, software and data management for a US parent company, for clients in insurance, mortgages, healthcare and government. CloudFactory Nepal, set up in 2010, processes and labels data for machine learning for “a global client base, including startups and Fortune 500 companies” (both from Onlinekhabar, 2023). Leapfrog Technology, with offices in Kathmandu and Seattle, lists AI and data, from data engineering to advanced analytics, among its services. A year in such a team teaches how clients abroad expect data checked and delivered.
Your first portfolio project
Open Data Nepal has 630 datasets, many as CSV files ready for a spreadsheet or pandas. Pick one question, and answer it from start to finish:
When do tourists come? The Tourism Ministry’s figures give arrivals month by month since 1995. Find the busy and quiet months, and what the 2015 earthquake and the 2020 pandemic did to them.
Is Kathmandu’s air worst in winter? The portal has readings of PM2.5 and other pollutants from monitors at the US Embassy and in Phora Durbar, from January 2015 to March 2021. Average them by month and show the pattern in one chart.
Where do workers go, and what does it cost to send money home? The data from the Labour Migration Report 2022 has labour approvals by destination country and the average cost of sending remittances to Nepal.
For each, write down the question first, clean the data and say what you changed, make the chart, and give the answer in three sentences. Say what the data can’t tell you, too.
Questions people ask
- Do I need to be good at maths?
- School maths, used carefully: percentages, averages, and the basic statistics in the skills list. Google’s certificate starts from nothing: no degree or experience needed. The more technical data scientist jobs need far more statistics, and in the United States typically at least a bachelor’s degree (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).
- What computer do I need?
- A laptop, not a phone. Power BI Desktop is free but runs only on Windows 10 or later; Microsoft recommends 4 GB of memory or more and a screen of at least 1440 × 900. Google Sheets runs in a web browser, and so does CS50’s coding space, cs50.dev, for practising SQL and Python.
- Can I practise on real company data?
- Only with permission, and never with people’s names or private details. Public data, like Open Data Nepal’s, is better for a portfolio anyway, because an employer can open it and check your work.
- Is my English good enough?
- The hardest English in this job is the short summary a manager reads in a minute. Nepal’s strongest English skill in EF’s 2025 index was writing (547), its weakest listening (495). Practise both: write a three-sentence answer for every analysis, and explain your charts aloud.
Related
Sources for this part
The sheet’s own sources are listed on it, above.
