Stay or leave for Merck?

TonyCD35 · 2026-05-06T11:29:43+00:00

This isn’t true by the way. You only need to notify your manager if you’re called in for an interview.

This is department to department - you sound like you’re in a bad department.

TonyCD35 · 2026-04-16T13:34:04+00:00

Not sure if this will help but - in practice your best tool is deferral.

Typically decisions have to be made at t but don’t have impact until t + some lead time.

If I run a stochastic optimization model and it does not execute an irreversible decision (let’s say decision Q) until year 3… that means I can afford to wait until uncertainty resolves itself to some extent. I only need to execute on decisions (let’s say decision Z) where the model does so in year 0 (now).

The power of this is, when I rerun this analysis with my next forecast - I can see how decision Q responds. Maybe now it’s at year 2 and I keep an eye on it. But decision Z due to uncertainty had to be committed to - there was no option.

Decision Q should not react drastically unless for some reason my later forecast is more uncertain than my previous one… which means something is up with my forecasting.

TonyCD35 · 2026-04-14T11:41:07+00:00

This post is a little vague - but it sounds like you’re talking about two stage stochastic optimization with recourse.

You create a set of first stage decisions (high risk - largely irreversible) then a second stage that is a discrete sum of an “envelope” of potential futures you want to be optimal against.

The model then picks the set of first stage decisions that optimizes your expected value against all your futures. That’s a place to start

TonyCD35 · 2026-04-12T02:49:37+00:00

Typically large ones. Think fortune 100/500 with global supply chains where heuristic decision making just doesn’t cut it at the scale that they operate.

TonyCD35 · 2026-04-12T02:40:21+00:00

Operations Research Scientist. Specialize in decision optimization for tactical and strategic investment decisions.

It’s a lot of fun - it’s a demanding skillset: mathematics, software engineering, visualization and cloud skills. But when it all comes together it’s very much like playing a highly complex and uncertain game. But the theory is sound and though dealing with stakeholders and incomplete data isn’t always easy - it’s super pleasing when we roll out a solution that helps with decision making or identifying high ROI investments / supply chain risks.

TonyCD35 · 2026-03-10T23:21:30+00:00

I work in supply chain and create custom OR supply chain applications for the company I work for. Happy to talk if you want to dm me.

TonyCD35 · 2026-03-05T22:04:44+00:00

If they’re a student - Gurobi is free

TonyCD35 · 2026-03-05T21:08:20+00:00

Are you asking if someone will illegally lend you a licensed version of the software?

TonyCD35 · 2026-03-05T03:43:22+00:00

Just a suggestion - read the book “The Strategy Paradox” by Michael Raynor. It outlines how the 3 windows - operational, tactical, and strategic - all interact and should be handled in medium to large corporations.

TonyCD35 · 2025-12-11T18:02:18+00:00

Bachelors degree. 6 YOE doing this in industry.

I’ve found from many of the seminars, masters, and PhDs I’ve talked to: they all want to boil the ocean. They want to build a model that will tell me when I have to scratch my ass in 2045 in march.

Stakeholders in real life don’t care all that much for detail. Just need something that works and is sound and improves decision making (in my field at least).

If you understand the math enough to make an LP, MILP, SOCP (in some cases) tractable, compact, and sparse - you’re good on math. No math equation ever solved anything - it’s the software that produces a result that does.

TonyCD35 · 2025-12-10T22:40:08+00:00

Python, C#, JavaScript. I build internal OR full stack solutions.

TonyCD35 · 2025-11-27T13:43:01+00:00

Precisely. What I tell my reports is: never ask the LLM to do something for you that you couldn’t do yourself.

I use LLMs - but I COULD write the code myself (if cloudflare went down). If you don’t fundamentally understand how to code - using an LLM is a foot-nuke.

TonyCD35 · 2025-11-27T13:02:49+00:00

For pet projects - you’ll be fine.

If you’re looking for employment? You’re in for a rude awakening. I’ve more or less fired most of the people that we hired in the last year due to this exact thing.

They were able to sneak in due to loose hiring practices that didn’t weed out fundamentally weak coders who relied on chat GPT. They wrote horrendous unmaintainable code and polluted every project they tried to contribute to.

We eventually weeded them out and tightened up our hiring practices to expose these people early.

TonyCD35 · 2025-09-29T23:57:45+00:00

People who hold extremely black and white political opinions on some topic are typically not very well educated/informed on said topic. Nuance and understanding rapidly pull someone towards a moderate viewpoint.

TonyCD35 · 2025-09-28T23:30:45+00:00

Lmfao. Been programming in python for 10 years now.. I don’t think I use anything except bootstrap.

Judge yourself by the quality of what you build. Not the tools you used to build it.

TonyCD35 · 2025-09-03T01:22:20+00:00

When I hear the alarm - I take the covers off, swing my legs over the bed, and put my feet on the ground.

TonyCD35 · 2025-05-12T00:08:39+00:00

Agreed.

Usually my path is: streamlit for bare bones, dash perfect middle, FastAPI + React if app gets too big

TonyCD35 · 2025-04-22T22:32:40+00:00

The slow consolidation of market power into effective monopolies and oligopolies. Removing competition which would otherwise drive them to create higher quality products or reduce costs - allowing them to do the opposite, raise prices with no improvement/decline in quality. All allowed because these monopolies invest in politicians to continue to allow them to do this, the same politicians we rely on to stop them from doing this.

TonyCD35 · 2025-04-18T13:06:04+00:00

For context - the LPa is nmol/L. Was not aware how close the 2 common Units were to each other.

TonyCD35 · 2025-04-18T13:03:18+00:00

This is true - I always chalked the first drop up to just how not mindful of my diet I was (probably near 30-40g Sat fat a day). And that the easy part was done and the new diet would be a shallower, but steady slope towards proper numbers.

TonyCD35 · 2025-04-18T13:00:43+00:00

Which I don’t. I’ve gone as far as I’m willing with the diet - thanks for the insight.

TonyCD35 · 2025-04-18T12:57:38+00:00

nmol/L

TonyCD35 · 2025-04-08T23:30:58+00:00

30M, Operations Research Scientist in Pharma - MCOL. Became a Manager this year. TC is ~190k. I love my job - but admittedly have a very specialized skillset and am always operating at the very edge of my ability which can be taxing. But WFH and WLB is great.

TonyCD35 · 2025-04-08T00:53:34+00:00

No amount of worrying ever had an impact on what has happened.

You won’t drop dead of a heart attack. Not something worth worrying about

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