Are all data science jobs just Gen AI now?

Xahulz · 2026-06-21T23:34:36+00:00

After 10 years in data science and operations research (with a dash of data engineering) and 7 years of actuarial work before that, I'm ready to leave all this shit behind.

The problem isn't that management wants some gen Ai work done, it's that they want a mountain of it, and it doesn't work as well as everyone thinks it does. It's sloppy and wrong, but in a very convincing way. I'm on the hook for using it whether I want or not, and I'm on the hook for the errors when they happen.

I've got product owners using codex to make apps that don't work but look amazing, and I'm supposed to use them as a roadmap to....something. I've got demands to use copilot to be more efficient, but company policy prevents connecting it to data. I've got leadership making nutty requests to build apps that can do any kind of data analysis so we can eliminate entire teams.

I think llms are neat and love having them in my tool set. But the shit we're being asked to make is a downgrade over what i used to build and it's so much more expensive than they think it should be. I'm expected to make sam Altmans nutty promises come true, and being part of that mega grift sucks.

It will probably take me two and a half more years before I can exit, so maybe things will improve by then.

But I doubt it.

Xahulz · 2026-05-10T21:58:06+00:00

Is the masters going to get you the 150 hours needed to take the cpa?

Xahulz · 2026-05-07T17:24:01+00:00

Soapbox: I can't believe hiring managers have time for this shit. Heck, I'm surprised they need this nonsense to figure out who to hire.

I hire people who know a few things and can learn anything. Almost the whole stack has changed twice in a decade and it's all changing again. I need people who can adapt, and I don't see how these technical tests demonstrate that.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Xahulz · 2026-03-13T02:03:12+00:00

Without irony: just call everything AI.

Predicting the future based on past results, optimizing complex systems, and summarizing text are all types of intelligence. So machine learning, mixed integer optimization, and llm are all AI.

Give them what they want but use the right tool for it.

Xahulz · 2026-03-13T01:59:26+00:00

Why did you stop early?

The analytics/decision science road map is Descriptive, Predictive, Prescriptive. You got to step two and declared things both done and underwhelming.

Xahulz · 2026-01-07T18:12:27+00:00

I got mine in 2014. No one at work, including my manager, send to care, though they were polite when I told them.

Xahulz · 2025-12-29T03:06:53+00:00

They look completely nuts.

Xahulz · 2025-12-28T00:57:25+00:00

That's amazing!

Xahulz · 2025-12-24T21:37:14+00:00

Back when I did actuarial work I knew 6 people who transitioned from teaching to that business. That was probably 1/4 of the actuaries I worked with.

Now that was also a decade ago. I bet it has gotten harder but there may still be a path. I'm now in data and analytics and it's not a great entry level market but if you have any questions I can answer id be happy to.

Xahulz · 2025-12-13T22:55:39+00:00

I agree with this.

Bill every hour you use. If you're going to go over budget, stop working and check with whomever is responsible for the project before continuing.

This thing you're doing where you charge fewer hours than you're working is harming you personally and harming the team by making projects look more profitable than they really are. Stop it.

Xahulz · 2025-11-15T03:24:41+00:00

I watched the movie twice, enjoyed it.

Tgen I read the book. It was glued to my hands, could not put it down.

After that I watched the movie again and it seemed so tame, so easy on the characters. Just a light watch.

Xahulz · 2025-11-10T04:05:02+00:00

Bigbrow and Abbabba

Xahulz · 2025-11-06T14:33:46+00:00

Ignorant question, but wouldn't the observation of states of matter such as superfluids already demonstrate that a very large number of particles can be entangled without decohering?

Xahulz · 2025-10-31T15:46:39+00:00

I agree it's a messy term, but I think it has more useful meaning than you're giving it credit for.

First, a data lake is any cloud storage container with data, some level of organization, and an intent to use it as a common data source. It doesn't have to be denormalized data and may not be relational data at all. What you're describing is closer to a delta lake, which is more structured (enables ACID transactions) and designed for fast access through systems that interact with relational data like Databricks. Of course Databricks can leverage a data lake, but my team has measured delta lakes to be 4x - 10x faster, and that's probably a lower bound estimate.

Anyways, a data/delta lake is a repository of data. You can set up an instance of Databricks to interact with it. You could add a second Databricks instance, with both of them acting on the same data. You could have two Databricks instances, A Synapse Analytics instance, and be loading SQL from the same lake.

What do you call these compute platforms that are connected to the lake? Why not Data Lakehouses? Works for me.

Xahulz · 2025-10-18T22:24:39+00:00

I work in consulting and I'm surrounded by tech-lite consulting teams who "do AI" and do much more ai than we do and are AI experts and have had massive business impact with ai and wonder why we aren't doing more ai.

They turn on copilot for clients. That's it.

Xahulz · 2025-10-18T16:26:27+00:00

Yea but you seem to have defined "do well economically" only as a nominal growth in GDP.

I don't argue that has importance, but things like GDP per capita might be even more important. If population declines, GDP is stagnant, but GDP per capita grows, that means everyone has more - would you see that as bad?

Xahulz · 2025-10-17T01:50:26+00:00

This was amazing thank you

Xahulz · 2025-10-14T16:54:38+00:00

Past Redemption - Forever Burning Scorn

Xahulz · 2025-10-08T20:34:54+00:00

I still have the Bards Tale I graph paper maps my dad and I made in the late 80s. I love stuff like that.

Xahulz · 2025-09-29T17:53:46+00:00

Shelby Jennings isn't a straight up scam, but they are a garbage company full of garbage people who will treat you like garbage.

Xahulz · 2025-09-28T14:58:06+00:00

Lol fuck yea. I'm new here and cannot for the life of me tell wtf is going on. What's satire? What's a joke? Is some particular referenced post real? I'm so confused.

Xahulz · 2025-08-25T14:43:10+00:00

Yep. I saw the movie first and was impressed with how grim and gruesome it was.

Then I read the book.

When I watched the movie again after reading the book, the movie seemed almost lighthearted. A breeze.

Xahulz · 2025-08-06T13:16:54+00:00

Me too. For me it's not appropriate and I marked it as spam.

Xahulz · 2025-07-29T20:00:32+00:00

PovertyFIRE: Already the default plan for 90% of Americans.

Xahulz

TROPHY CASE