Need Career Advice: Should I move from ITSM/Service Desk Management into Data Engineering & Analytics Operations after ~11 years?

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some honest career advice from people who have made similar transitions or work in Data Engineering, Platform Operations, or IT Operations.

I have nearly 11 years of experience in IT Service Management, Production Support, and Service Desk leadership. My background includes Incident, Problem, Change, Major Incident Management, ServiceNow, Jira, ITIL, stakeholder management, SLA governance, client-facing roles, and leading support teams.

Recently, I got an opportunity within my company that is very different from anything I've done before.

The project is in the Data Engineering / Data Analytics space. My responsibilities would include:

• Taking over project transition from a third-party vendor to my company
• Managing and modifying Jira Service Management (JSM) based on ITIL processes
• Handling operational support for the platform
• Working with SQL
• Creating and maintaining Power BI reports and dashboards
• Supporting Service Requests (SRs)
• Learning AWS Redshift as the platform moves there
• Working closely with Data Engineers and Data Analysts

The thing is... I've never worked in Data Engineering before.

I'm excited because it feels like a chance to move into a more future-oriented domain, but at the same time I'm nervous because I'll be learning while working on a live production environment.

My questions are:

1. Is this a smart long-term career move?
2. Has anyone successfully moved from ITSM/Production Support into Data Engineering or Platform Operations?
3. How difficult was the learning curve?
4. Realistically, how long would it take to become productive with SQL, Power BI, and Redshift while working full-time?
5. Would you stay in ITSM leadership, or would you pivot into Data Engineering/Analytics Operations if you had this opportunity?
6. With AI changing traditional Service Desk work, does moving closer to data and cloud platforms make sense?

For context, I'm not expected to become a full-fledged Data Engineer immediately. The expectation is to own the operational transition, learn the platform, and gradually become comfortable with the technical side.

I'd really appreciate honest advice—especially from people who've made a similar career shift or currently work in Data Engineering, DataOps, Platform Operations, or Cloud Operations.

Thanks in advance!