What is your job title? "Senior Staff Engineer"
What does it involve doing? developing business intelligence SW, and, also, driving hundreds of more junior engineers towards Engineering Excellence goals (by enflaming their enthusiasm, monitoring their progress, mentoring as needed, nagging when indispensible, consulting where asked, and so on and so forth).
What kind of education did you need to get there? my MS, EE, taught me to design chips -- most of what I need on the job I learned later, on my own.
How do you stay relevant and educated with the latest trends and ideas? voraciously read blogs &c, continuously develop toy projects on my own time, help out with open source, go to as many conferences as I possibly can (mostly as a speaker, to save conference fees, but more to listen than to speak).
What skills are needed on a daily basis? Python, SQL, Google App Engine, C++, algorithms, data structures, design patterns, HTTP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, scalable design/architecture, Google-internals-fu, how to win friends and influence people, English reading/listening and writing/speaking, presentation skills, probability, statistics, data mining, machine learning, accounting, speaking the language of business decision-makers, economics (game theory, econometrics, demand&supply 101, auctions theory, market-design), ...
What kind of personality is needed to thrive in your field? being able to speak many languages (both literally and metaphorically) helps, as does loving the spotlight, but neither is, strictly speaking, "needed" -- I see all sort of personality patterns being successful (from the most outgoing to the most bashful, &c) if overflowing overabundant talent and drive is present.
What is great about what you do? applying wonderful maths, programming technologies, and theories I've always loved (Bayesian probability approaches, economics, &c) to the challenge of sustaining monetization of our activities and thereby helping fund initiatives that touch billions of people and may help change the world.
What are the pitfalls of what you do (if any)? decision-makers always push for precise and certain numbers when all you can offer is a statistical estimate of a range of values with (say) 95% assurance -- the pitfall is giving in to their craving and giving the single central estimate as if it was magical truth, the challenge is keeping professional standards up by forcing them to accept the ranges and fuzziness that reality imposes.
What initially got you into the field your in? SW dev't, you mean? I designed cool HW prototypes and nobody would use unless there were easy SW interfaces, so I spent years doing the needed SW interfaces for the HW I had designed -- and when I came up for breath I was out of touch with the latest and greatest HW technologies but pretty much in the groove for SW dev't, so there I stayed. If you mean my specific current field of Business Intelligence, that's just the latest application domain I'm trying -- a year ago I was doing cluster/network management software, and as a technical manager, not as an engineer!-)
If there was one single important tip you could give to newcomers, what would it be? the one most important skill you need is English -- especially if like me you're not a native speaker, but, even if you are -- learn to listen, learn to read, learn to write, learn to speak -- and learn to speak in public and present effectively, too; that's going to be a long-term win -- all technologies come and go, but English is here to stay.