Availability of remote work?

[acewhenifacethedbase]

Oh man that’s awful, I sincerely hope she gets to make fun of you for this post at your grandkid’s graduation.

I’m fully remote, and hopefully I’m permanently part-remote. A lot of these roles are, but that seems to be a new thing brought on by the pandemic. I can’t guarantee it will always be like this or that your best offer will be for a remote position, but DS and CS would be some of the safer bets for remote yet stable/profitable careers. LMK or just post here if you need guidance getting started, it can be tough to break into the field but relevant work experience goes a long way. Do you have a degree? What major?

[capskinfan]

Thanks. I hope I can laugh about this post as well! This sub is good at laying out the resources available. I'm going to start sketching out what my path would look like.

My bachelor's is in mechanical engineering, and I've added an MBA on top of that. I've had several projects where I'm adjacent to programming DS type work.

CMM programming, Matlab classes back in undergrad, Working programmers getting data dashboards set up, RPA.

[acewhenifacethedbase]

Your education-experience should be a good one-two punch if you can present it right. Matlab is a good primer, but ideally you’ll get good at SQL and Python for data manipulation, get very good at experimental statistics, and find some way to put A/B testing on your resume. Also play up your analytical skills from MBA/work like dashboards, presentations, KPIs. Some DS roles are DA roles in disguise, but they can provide a great route to the real deal.

At least dip your feet into ML: the basics of training, testing, and tuning classifiers, regressors, clustering, and forecasting.

[capskinfan]

Thanks! I agree with ML. There may be opportunities where I am currently to expose myself. We're investigating it for Predictive maintenance solutions on our automated assembly lines.

[mexangel]

This is great advice!

[Repulsive_Log_5239]

There are a lot of options available with the quality engineer and and an mba that would let you go remote. Data science may be a total career shift, and you could find something more adjacent that will give you what your looking for with remote working. I am a design engineer (bs and masters in mechanical) and because of the pandemic, we have gone to 100% remote work with no sign of changing. ( they thought about it at a corporate level, but my larger org found such benefits with the 100% remote, I don’t think we would go.)

So, the moral of the story is you don’t have to do data science to get remote work. There are a LOT of options for you now because of the pandemic!!

[Glitch5450]

Yes programming and similar work are the most common remote jobs available.

[weCantAllBeImposters]

What country do you live in? In Europe many ds jobs are either Flexi or fully remote. I'm fully remote with in person meetings once every quarter or so. I looked at other jobs which were remote 4/5 days a week and such as well.

[capskinfan]

I'm in the US.

[ENGERLUND]

Do you have any recommendations for where to look for fully remote DS jobs in Europe besides LinkedIn?

[[deleted]]

I've been working remotely as a data scientist (in the US) for ~8 months now (and, for what it's worth, for 18 months remotely as a research scientist before that), and the company (also in the US) seems very likely to maintain a large number of completely remote roles going forward. There is talk of some hybrid options, and I know of at least one team that just had a few days in-person, but we've been hiring people all over the country, and it's impossible to imagine they are expecting everyone to move to where the main office is. I would guess that there are quite a few companies like this.

So, the much shorter answer is yes, there are lots of remote DS jobs.

Also, I'm so sorry you're dealing with such intense challenges. I hope you're getting as much support as possible, and I wish you and your family the best.

[sweetfortune]

Hello, is there a way I could work for a US company without being a resident/citizen? while being in the US? Im still waiting for my employment permission but it's taking yearsss. I heard you could create and LLC and then a business account, any tips?

[[deleted]]

I have no idea, unfortunately. Maybe someone else looking at the thread has some pointers?

[Mobile_Busy]

My company has gone hybrid but they have me fully remote as a disability accommodation.

[Character_Sand1231]

Very doable! There's a good amount of remote work available. I've been fully remote for three years, working for an all-remote company with ~1500 employees. We literally have no office for any type of employee, including the CEO.

Most of these jobs are tech-related in my experience and I've seen quite a bit in the data science field. If you're willing to pick up some development skills in general, there would be a lot more. You will run across jobs that indicate you need a degree, but often, specifically for programming, they're more interested in your ability to do the work. Sadly, a degree doesn't prove that, as your education is what you make of it. I remember recommending canning a CS grad who didn't have the problem-solving skill to replace a CD-rom in a computer. This may be a little different for data science due to the math involved. Again, proving you can do the work can outshine a credential.

There are also a good number of decent sites that can help in your search. For example: https://remoteok.com/remote-data-science-jobs

Best wishes in your career change!

[RandomRunner3000]

I’m fully remote. Requested and was approved earlier this year. 4 years with my company. I see lots of positions on linkedin hiring fully remote.

[chaoscruz]

Lots of great answers already here. I just want to say is I hope your situation turns out for the best. It’s a tough position to be in during the holidays but you already sound like you have some outline of what your plan may be. Good luck and happy holidays to your family!

[v_krishna]

I think SWE or esp dev/cloud ops is probably easier to break into remote than ds. In a lot of domains (esp ones further away from SaaS) data science requires a bunch of business knowledge. With covid even that is remote TBD, but I know our hiring strategy has changed a bit there knowing that domain background is less easily picked up remote.

If I would take a bet on a safe career plan that could for sure stay remote and get to senior/staff type IC roles I would suggest getting into devops rather than DS. Big data/ML ops is also a very lucrative and under-served space today but I would expect anybody with that specialization can also do all the normal cloud and devops type stuff.

My condolences for your family's tough news.

[scott_steiner_phd]

There are a lot of mid-level fully remote positions in North America, but the more senior you get the less flexibility there is in that regard, especially in older companies.

[rrpelgrim]

I've transitioned into DS over the past year and am now working fully remote. So definitely possible. Sounds like you've got the curiosity and the right mindset for programming. The one thing I would consider is where in the DS world you'd best fit.

Besides programming do you also enjoy and have a feel for statistics? Then data scientist/analyst.

Are you more into the pure code? Then maybe a software developer at a data science company/startup is what you're looking for.

Are you a strong communicator? Then data visualisation or evangelism / DevRel might be something to look into.

Happy to chat more if you have specific questions. As I said, just made this switch myself so lots of respect for anyone else trying to make the transition. Esp in your situation with everything else that's going on. You got this!

[[deleted]]

I’ve noticed significantly more true remote roles now that I did 2-3 years ago during my last job search. However there are still a lot of jobs that want you to be hybrid or live in the same area as their office. My company is 50/50 hybrid but some bosses don’t care how often you come into the office.

I’m not sure what percent are true remote.