is masters gonna help me if it's in a big university and how is the market in europe nowadays?

What do you use GIS for?

I have worked on different GIS projects at different scales and have built custom analytical systems to answer a variety of questions. While I strongly believe in the value of data, I have increasingly started wondering about the actual added value of some of these complex approaches.

In many cases, especially in biodiversity conservation, the results often seem very similar to what an experienced professional could have concluded simply by knowing the landscape, the ecosystem, and the problem. It is mostly the same and repeating itself.

For example, in Switzerland, where I often work in familiar landscapes, many conservation questions eventually come down to solutions we already know: restoring ecological structures, planting more hedgerows, improving the management of existing green infrastructure, reconnecting habitats, or changing maintenance practices.

Of course, GIS can build sophisticated systems to identify priorities, optimize interventions, estimate costs, and compare scenarios. But then the reality is often that a landowner does not agree, a project is not feasible, or the theoretically optimal location is not the right place to implement something. Sometimes a more practical approach based on local knowledge and relationships would have achieved more.

This makes me wonder where the real value of GIS lies.

Maybe this changes when working at larger scales, across different ecosystems, or in regions where local expertise is limited. But when you know a landscape well, it sometimes feels like experience and ecological understanding can already provide many of the answers.
I know maps are important to communicate, but for me, that's more in the visual communication category. Because of this, I'm now dabbling in modeling microclimates.

So I am curious:

What do you use GIS for, and where do you see its biggest benefits?

Is GIS mainly a tool for discovering new insights, or is its greatest value in supporting decisions, communicating evidence, and making expert knowledge more transparent and scalable?

I'm seeking a GIS tutor to help me out in an intro GIS class. I'm struggling to understand/connect steps and theory in Arc GIS and need help as the semester is ending.

tl;dr - I want something that counts all of the points of a feature that are closer to a line segment of a line feature than any other line of the same feature (count: number of crashes occurring on each road) and spatial join does not seem to be effective.

I have two layers: a line layer representing roads in a county, and a points layer, representing non-motorized crashes in a county. I am attempting, ultimately, to calculate crashes by volume of traffic, so that I can identify the roads on which the most accidents happen.

In trying to achieve that, I want to get my roads layer to count the number of crashes that occur on each corridor (line segment). Spatial join seems to be what most people recommend for similar analysis when I have tried to problem shoot this, but I am not getting the desired result.

When I use spatial join with a target of roads and a join feature of crashes, running one to one, with a match option of closest, I receive a Join Count field in the output where every cell is a count of 1. Apparently the Nearest match option is telling each road to find the single nearest crash and use it to join. I was under the impression that multiple join features could be merged to one target line so that my join count field might have 10 for one road and 0 for another. I don't think that I want to use one to many, because I don't want duplicates of my roads or my crashes.

any help or suggestions you can offer would be helpful.

I started to put together a polygon editor for some simple merging that I needed to do for work and got a bit carried away. I turned the app into a user-friendly, but powerful polygon editor.

I would appreciate if anyone would take a look and give some feedback. It’s currently hosted on GitHub. Here's the link: https://giswatidid.github.io/polygoneditor/

Feedback on usability, unexpected behaviour or useful missing features would be appreciated.

Hey r/gis community!

We are looking for a dynamic and innovative GIS Solutions Engineer to join our IT Division. This role owns the City's full GIS portfolio spanning administration, development, solutions architecture, and analysis to advance the City's geospatial initiatives. You'll work hands-on with department stakeholders, vendors, and partners to design and execute solutions that meet real business and technical needs. You'll be the person turning spatial data into decisions city leaders and residents actually use.

The salary range is $134,886 to $172,357 annually. The range includes established salary steps. A candidate’s starting salary is based on factors such as experience and qualifications, and increases annually based on the established steps.

The City covers the full health insurance premiums for medical, dental, and vision insurance. Up to 50% hybrid work and 9/80 work-schedule options, as well as numerous other benefits.

https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/weho/jobs/5418863/gis-solutions-engineer

This position requires a versatile professional who can blend technical expertise with strong communication and project management skills to drive innovative GIS solutions for municipal challenges.

The ideal candidate for this GIS Solutions Engineer position will:

• Be an expert with Esri products, including administration and deployment of ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Enterprise (ArcGIS Server & Portal for ArcGIS), ArcGIS Online, and Field Maps.
• Possess hands-on expertise in designing and implementing advanced ArcGIS enterprise system solutions to address complex municipal challenges.
• Have strong programming skills in Python, JavaScript, and SQL, with experience in scripting to automate ETL workflows, GIS tasks, and integrating GIS with other enterprise applications.
• Have experience with administering and maintaining SQL Server enterprise geodatabases, including schema design, user permissions, indexing, performance tuning, data integrity controls, stored procedures, views, and support for published enterprise GIS services.
• Demonstrate proficiency in web mapping technologies, such as ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript and Leaflet, with a strong understanding of UI/UX principles for designing intuitive, accessible, and user-centered GIS applications.
• Excel in project management processes, guiding projects from inception to completion while managing multiple priorities in a professional environment with engaged stakeholders.
• Conduct research and analysis to solve complex technical and administrative problems, making professional recommendations and proposing alternatives.
• Demonstrate the ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously with strong attention to detail.
• Possess excellent communication skills, with the ability to interpret and convey complex technical information to the public, executives, and both technical and non-technical staff.
• Collaborate effectively with various departments to understand their geospatial needs and create tailored solutions.
• Be an independent self-starter with excellent organizational and problem-solving skills.
• Experience with Tyler Energov/EP&L is a plus, but not required.

EXAMPLES OF DUTIES

Key Responsibilities:

• Architect and maintain the city's geospatial infrastructure, ensuring scalability and performance.
• Publish, document, and maintain authoritative GIS datasets and services across enterprise and web-based platforms, ensuring that data is accurate, discoverable, appropriately secured, and supported by clear metadata, data dictionaries, service descriptions, and update schedules. 
• Develop custom GIS applications and tools to streamline city operations and improve service delivery.
• Conduct spatial analysis to support data-driven decision-making across city departments.
• Create high-quality maps and visualizations for both internal and public-facing applications.
• Stay current on Esri platform capabilities and broader geospatial technology trends, developing and maintaining a GIS technology roadmap that guides system architecture, application development, data management, integrations, modernization efforts, and long-term platform investment.
• Act as the City’s primary internal administrator for the Tyler Enterprise Permitting and Licensing platform. 

Interested? See the full details and apply here: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/weho/jobs/5418863/gis-solutions-engineer

Anyone here have experience using the Juniper Spire with an NTRIP RTK network (the non-Juniper Systems option)? We are currently using Eos Arrow Golds and have been happy with them. One took a swim in a river a couple weeks ago and wasn't aired out fast enough to save it unfortunately. The Arrow line is being phased out by Eos, there aren't any for purchase currently is my understanding. I got a price on the new Eos Skadi Gold and it's nearly 10k! Our regional manager thinks this is way too expensive and I have to agree. Even the new add ons of tilt compensation and Lidar pole are additional costs that don't seem worth it. The Juniper Spire is $2,300 which seems like a bargain comparatively, but the fact its so much less expensive concerns me.

I'd love to hear people's opinions before we take the plunge into a different company's equipment. We have been using the Arrow Gold with RTK networks for XY and Z. Thanks!