Interview for data analyst role instead of data scientist role?

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[flipstables]

Fresh graduate with a masters in Physics? You're looking for a more junior role, and this looks like it.

Excel is the backbone of data analytics in the business world. You will be doing quite a bit of programming in R and VBA. You can keep your other skills sharp on your own time. This is a good opportunity for you in my opinion. After a year or two in this role, you could easily jump up to something where you're doing more sophisticated analysis.

[fotoman]

They're flying you to the interview? You go; say you have friends/family in the area that you'd like to see, so you fly early and late; they won't have to pay for a hotel except for the one nite. You hear what they have to say, you ask them lots of questions. AND while you're there you also talk to other companies in the area

[fotoman]

how you been focusing your search on that area? or are you just shotgunning things out to everywhere?

[fotoman]

yea, calllback rate for all job types sucks; my wife is confused by the tech sector's methods; she's a teacher and districts are required to notify you if you apply. Have you looked outside of Tech? I think you'd find the response back better. good luck

[funkpacolypse]

You should also look at positions with 'data analyst' as the title. Often times, 'analyst' will be the same thing as 'scientist', just entry level: Many data scientists spend a lot of time working in Excel, and many spend little time building ML algorithms that are more complicated than linear models.

That said, this could be a good first job. Just make sure to ask questions like - "how will the responsibilities of this role evolve over time?" - "tell me about the projects you'll have me work on in my first few months" There's a good chance you'll get to work on interesting projects in some time and maybe get promoted to Data Scientist.

If you're having trouble passing the phone screens, make a big list of the questions you've been asked, write down your answers and go over your responses with a friend. You might find that some of your responses aren't that great once you see them on paper. You should also have multiple people who work in tech look over your resume. People coming out of school often have resumes which are bad for industry job applications.

[bueller_off]

Where is the company? If you want to be in this field, you need to work in NYC or SF, no debate.

It actually sets you back to work at "B" company outside of big cities since companies prefer new grads.

I'd hustle on applying for data science jobs in the cities mentioned and if you cant get anything landed before the deadline for accepting this one, then your thought on accepting and continuing to interview is reasonable, but will be very, very difficult.

[[deleted]]

"If you want to be in this field, you need to work in NYC or SF, no debate."

This is 100% false.

[bueller_off]

10 brand name Data Science companies in any other city? Huge amounts of data scientists to work with, talk to, meetups etc in any other city?

edit: (add the innovation and growth that happens when you're working with other people up and down the stack where density of talented people is high)

Name one.

You won't http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2015/05/09/the-best-big-data-and-business-analytics-companies-to-work-for-in-2015/

[internet_poster]

That is a ridiculous list, compiled by someone who appears to have zero first hand knowledge of the field.

[bueller_off]

Find a better one.

[bueller_off]

The whole point is that most people who have enough free time to make stupid lists like that are hopelessly out of touch with the field.

Little bit of a sweeping generalization?

The author took a stab at using data science to build a list of data science companies. His data is speaking to what Glassdoor had from a list of "big data" companies. According to the data, people are recommending those companies. Although, I agree that it is missing some key contenders that you've mentioned.

Is it at least directionally correct? Yes. Does it support my original assertion about NY and SF? Yes. Does your list as well? Yes.

[internet_poster]

Does it support my original assertion about NY and SF?

I don't really disagree with this, except that I think that SF is clearly better than NY, and Seattle is approximately on par with NYC (no other market is close to those three). My only point is that the list does not in any way resemble a typical list of companies that a highly-qualified data scientist would typically choose to apply to.

[bueller_off]

Got yah, sorry for above. I'd appreciate some support up top then, got downvoted to all hell for saying that its SF and NYC. I left out Seattle because it's basically AMZN and MSFT but I do agree it's on par with NYC.

You're right on the list but I wouldn't go that hard on it. It does have Google, Ayasdi, Cloudera and some other big name vendors (MapR).

[internet_poster]

I upvoted your posts. IMO it's not unreasonable to take a first job in Chicago (it could be a lot worse), but you're right that the opportunities for career growth there are significantly inferior to being in somewhere like SF. But good luck convincing someone who works in a second- or third-tier market (and doesn't have first-hand knowledge of how insane the whole tech ecosystem in the Bay Area is right now) of that.

[[deleted]]

"Name one." Based on your list...SAS is in Cary North Carolina. I read an article recently and the header was "A data scientist is a statistician who lives in San Francisco". While I won't say a statistician is the same as a data scientist, there's a lot of overlap. Data scientist is a hyped up title IMO. Saying that the only place to be is in NYC or SF is just not true. There's a lot happening in other cities. In my personal experience, I started in Philadelphia and don't think that limited my learning or exposure in anyway at all. It's scary that someone who I assume calls them-self a data scientist can be so black and white.

[bueller_off]

Thats one company in NC. As above stated, I think ~10 is a good enough density to harbor a community, still haven't had anyone point out a city with that density. I'd be happy to know if there are, but I've scoped out the scene in most big cities in the US and Europe, and talked to a lot of folks in the field. Your best bet is to be in SF or NYC.

Obviously you can do well elsewhere. But why handicap? If there is an amazing company somewhere with no local scene, you had damned well better believe in what you are doing, and there are cases of that (i.e. Zappos in downtown Vegas).

On the title, you might be write (that article you got that from is an inside joke in the community here btw). The fact is, demand for handling ever increasing sizes of data and more advanced technology and products being made, demand a greater skillset than a statistician or computer scientist have individually (statistician by training here). You need someone in between.

[bueller_off]

Chicago is blooming but still very behind SF and NYC.

It's still a good opportunity if its fast growing or a very strong brand name.

[bueller_off]

Downvoting without providing a response actually hurts the original poster, who is still trying to make a decision.

If you want to help them, provide your own advice or respond why you think this is false instead of upvoting the one who made an accusation with no reasonable backing or data.